Lyric Stage's "Spider Woman": Verdad Is Still Verdad

Eddy Cavazos & Taavon Gamble in "Kiss of the Spider Woman"
(photo: Lyric Stage Company)

His name was Molina.

And as the central character in the many incarnations of the story Kiss of the Spider Woman, he has endured, from book to film to stage, arriving this season as Lyric Stage Company's opener. It all started back when Fred Ebb (of the show-writing team of Kander and Ebb) saw the 1985 film based on the 1976 novel and 1983 play by Manuel Puig, El Beso de la Mujer Arana, and first shared it with John Kander, then with the legendary director Hal Prince. They invited Puig to consider writing a libretto for a musicalized version, but he demurred, and the Book was eventually written by Terrence McNally. The musical premiered in Toronto in the summer of 1992, then opened in London's West End, with its ultimate Broadway premiere in 1993, when it was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, winning 7 including Best Musical, while running for over 900 performances. This current production should give theatergoers a unique opportunity to see this seldom-produced work.

Lisa Yuen & Cast in "Kiss of the Spider Woman"
(photo: Lyric Stage Company)

The time is the recent past. Molina (the appealing Eddy Cavazos), a homosexual window-dresser is imprisoned in an unnamed South American country (Argentina would be a safe bet) for allegedly corrupting a minor. He maintains his sanity by re-imagining scenes from films made by his goddess the actress Aurora (Lisa Yuen). Suddenly one night into his cell is thrown an unconscious, brutally beaten political prisoner named Valentin (the dynamic Taavon Gamble). When this new prisoner, a Marxist revolutionary, regains consciousness, he rejects Molina's attempts to befriend him. Instead he visualizes his girlfriend Marta (Katrina Sofia). Molina continues to extol his movie star, in all her roles save one, The Spider Woman, in which Aurora played the figure of death. Molina develops serious stomach cramps and is taken to the infirmary where he visualizes his mother (Johanna Carlisle-Zepeda) who assures him he could never bring shame on her. When Molina returns to his cell he starts to succeed at entertaining Valentin and in fact begins to fall in love with him. Valentin, hoping to convince Molina to contact his compadres, seduces Molina and gets him to promise to phone his conspirators once he is freed. The Warden (Luis Negron) tells Molina his mother is very sick and that he will be freed to visit if he reveals the names of Valentin's peers, which he pretends to do. Once in his mother's house, Molina does call Valentin's friend, is caught and re-imprisoned. Refusing to compromise Valentin and reveal his fellow rebels, Molina declares his love. Aurora, in the guise of the Spider Woman, finally gives him her kiss. Molina declares he walks “in Technicolor now”, having experienced true and pure love with Valentin.

Eddy Cavazos & Taavon Gamble in "Kiss of the Spider Woman"
(photo: Lyric Stage Company)

And therein lies the major problem with this production. In program notes, Rachel Bertone (Director and Choreographer) ominously states: “I hope my interpretation of the ending shows how this partnership can teach us to love”. Unfortunately what this does (not to revealed here) is subvert the fundamental message of many kinds of love, including non-sexual ones that convey the generosity sometimes needed to recognize basic human needs. With a terribly wrong-headed tacked-on ending, not only does fantasy obliterate reality but you end up with a drastically sluggish second act. Having read Puig's original novel and the play he wrote based on it, as well as seen the film version and the original Broadway version (each of which has slightly differing endings, but none of them as misguided as this mounting), one has to conclude that somewhere along the evolution of this current show, the sexy and seductive subtext has been lost, along with dramatic tension. Some of the strengths of the original remain, notably the Tony-winning score, which includes the lovely music to “Dear One”, the energetic “Where You Are”, Molina's mother's plaintive “You Could Never Shame Me”, and the prisoners' anthem “The Day after That”. That said, it's one of those scores that registers in context, not as stand-alone numbers. Some of them, no doubt originally added to support the casting of a well-known dancer (Chita Rivera) in the title role, come across as intrusive and redundant. What this version fundamentally lacks is an acknowledgment that Valentin offers Molina what he craves, in an almost noble and kind gesture, albeit one with some political motives. It's complicated by its arbitrary ending here. Nonetheless, if one hasn't had the chance to see this show before, get thee to Lyric Stage Company.

The production has Scenic Design by Janie E. Howland, Costume Design by Marian Bertone, Lighting Design by Franklin Meissner, Jr., Sound Design by Andrew Duncan Will, and Projection Design (so important in a work so focused on visual fantasies) by Johnathan Carr. Also featured in the cast are the roles of Estaban (Diego Klock-Perez), Marcos (Davron S. Monroe), Emilio (Arthur Cuadros), Gabriel (Ricardo Holguin), and the Ensemble including Bernie Baldassaro, Arthur Gomez, Felton Sparks and Lance-Patrick Strickland.

 

Eddy Cavazos & Luis Negron in "Kiss of the Spider Woman"
(photo: Lyric Stage Company)

  

The two men uphold what has been described as the triumph of the human heart, as they progress from mutual mistrust to an offbeat kind of love, as they learn to live together or die, all the time facing torture and death. While Ebb claimed that his and Kander's “only aim is to move people, and to entertain them”, this show, as with their Scottsboro Boys, is all about power, or its abuse. As the Warden puts it: “first define human, then we'll talk about human rights”. It's a message that should shake us up, that verdad is still verdad.