Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

“…Patrick Page, as the megalomaniacal scientist who becomes the evil mutant called the Green Goblin, provides the one reason for adults unaccompanied by minors to see the show. His role has been expanded, and Mr. Page uses the extra time not just to terrorize the audience amiably, as you expect mean green scene stealers to do. (He has charmingly reinvented that staple of melodramatic villains, the sustained insane cackle.) He also has become the show’s entertaining id, channeling and deflecting our own dark thoughts about this lopsided spectacle.”

“What does Spider-Man have going for it? The bad guy. Mr. Page is a classical actor of high distinction whom New York playgoers will remember as the mercurial Henry VIII of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s marvelous 2008 revival of A Man for All Seasons. Mr. Page has a voice like a cathedral organ and enough charisma to blast Mr. Carney into the next county, and you can tell that he’s having a grand old time playing a supervillain.”

“Page, though, is the real star. He’s a Shakespearean actor who knows how to walk that fine line between camp and earnestness. He has a villainous voice that commands and excellent comic timing, and he provides the impish joy this show desperately needs.”

“Luckily, Patrick Page, the veteran actor who plays Osborn and the Goblin, is an exuberantly entertaining villain.”

“Patrick Page is the production’s consistent scene-stealer.”

“Patrick Page as the Green Goblin, a mad scientist who created the Sinister Six mutants, gives the performance of a lifetime. Superlative subtext, timing (even in the pointing of a demonic fingernail), and lines:’I’m a $65 million circus tragedy,’ he boasts.”

“More Green Goblin equals more fun! With more stage time, Page gets to ham it up more, with particular relish in Act Two’s opening tehcno-infused number, A Freak Like Me Needs Company. The 49-year-old thesp may be the best thing about this production.”

“The evening’s villainy is now all concentrated in the visage of Page, who appears to be having a ball, filling the hall with mad-doctor guffaws. He camps it up as gleefully as Cyril Ritchard once did, playing Captain Hook to Mary Martin’s Peter Pan.”

“Page registers by grounding his cartoon villainy in human roots.”

“But the real star of the show is Patrick Page, who seems to be having the time of his life as scientist Norman Osborn, who becomes the Green Goblin. Page is an accomplished stage actor who chews this show’s formidable scenery with gusto and finesse. It’s tough for any actor to relax into a show as laden with special effects as this one, but Page looks like he belongs there.”

“Among the cast, Patrick Page makes the strongest impression as the Green Goblin. Even while looking like a mutant, his bits of light comedy and pandering to the audience are the show’s most genuinely human touches.”

“And Page, in full hammy baddie mode, gets big laughs for the lone non-Bono number, an update of the Rodgers and Hart classic ”I’ll Take Manhattan” delivered with malevolent glee.”

“Patrick Page, almost displaces Spider-Man’s heroics because the audience is so taken with the splendid lizardly villain, Mr. Page.”

“Page steals the show as the demented Goblin and the driven Osborn, playing the former deliciously over the top at times, yet also showing the passion Osborn has for both his work and his wife.”

“If Spider Man is saved by one man it is Patrick Page; he is marvelous.”

“Patrick Page is the King of Broadway Villainy…His beefed up role allows him to show love, compassion and drive (not to mention a sense of right and wrong) which now makes his transformation into the super villain all the more complete, scary and thrilling.”

“Best of all, Patrick Page’s Green Goblin is given more to do, including that new song, “A Freak Like Me,” a funky comic ditty with a danceable beat that is something of a showstopper.”

“The real star of the night, however, would be Patrick Page as Norman Osborn/ The Green Goblin… In the first few acts, Page imbues Osborn with the put-upon dignity of a scientist short of funding and somewhere between madness and a breakthrough. His later scenes as Green Goblin really carry the show, nailing the best lines and garnering the most audience adoration. He brings the attitude and spot on comic timing that save the show from drowning in its own self important shmaltz. By the end of the show, when he bangs out I’ll Take Manhattan on a baby grand, it’s clear who owned the night.”