We saw Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark last night. Before I continue, I should point out that the show is still in early previews (last night was the fourth such preview) and it doesn’t officially open until January. So in theory, there’s time to fix any problems.

But, oh my god. This thing is absolutely terrible.

Most of the publicity has been about the show’s technical snafus and injured actors. But there were no technical problems last night, no glitches that stopped the show.

The real problems are the book, the music, and the lyrics. And I don’t see how any of these get fixed.

The story is totally incoherent. The songs (except one) are tuneless and uninteresting. The lyrics are pointless. The spoken dialogue is boring. The characters are uninvolving. There is no wit or humor. There is nothing to make you laugh or tear up or care about what is happening.

I’m sorry. This is not a Broadway show. This is a $65 million, three-hour piece of crap. Some people have said it’s basically a Cirque de Soleil production, but that’s not true. Cirque de Soleil performers at least contort themselves into interesting shapes and create art with their bodies. Here, it’s just people on wires. So you can’t even give it that.

I go to the theater to be changed. I want to walk out of a show thinking about something in a new way, or having laughed or cried, or heard some good songs, or watched some interesting performances. I’m not impressed by people flying above the audience in costumes or enormous pieces of moving scenery or giant video screens.

This thing has no reason to exist.

The story makes no sense. There are a few random villains but they rarely appear and they rarely interact with Spider-Man. They don’t even seem to have any diabolical plans or motivation. They attack Spider-Man a couple of times but we don’t know why. They’re just kind of there. In addition to the Green Goblin and some villains called the Sinister Six, the Greek mythological figure Arachne appears in the show. Arachne, as the Playbill helpfully reminds us, was turned into a spider by Athena after she beat Athena in a weaving contest. While it might be an interesting idea to have a story about Arachne and Spider-Man, there is no story here. She just shows up every so often. She has no reason for being in the show.

As for the music: I like rock musicals. I loved Spring Awakening, and American Idiot has its moments. Both of those shows use music and lyrics to tell a story. But Bono and The Edge appear to know nothing about how to do this. And they won’t even deign to come to New York to watch the previews of their own damn show, so how can they fix anything?

Oh, I forgot to mention the four annoying, recurring geek characters who talk in rhyming couplets and bring the action to a complete stop whenever they appear and whose only apparent purpose is to stall for time during set changes behind the curtain.

And also, there’s a song where Arachne and an eight-legged spider chorus sing a song about shoes. Yeah, shoes. It’s not even campy bad. It’s just boring bad.

The one good moment in the show is a ballad sung late in the second act by Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Mary Jane, played by Jennifer Damiano. I feel sorry that she has to be in such an awful show after her role in the terrific Next to Normal.

I tried to go in with an open mind but I hated this thing from start to finish.

Even the name of the show is terrible.

Oh, and I haven’t even talked about the CRAZY AUDIENCE MEMBER sitting next to us! But that deserves its own post. (Update: here it is.)