Date: Fri 30-Jul-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Kiss-Spider-Raul-TheatreWorks

Full Text:

THEATRE REVIEW: Finding Compassion In A Jail Cell, And Brilliance On A New

Milford Stage

(with cut)

By Julie Stern

NEW MILFORD -- When TheatreWorks New Milford, perpetually fearless in its

willingness to take on challenging and difficult material, gets a good play in

its sights, the results are impressive. In the case of this summer's

production of the Tony Award-winning Kiss of the Spider Woman, director Susan

Pettibone and her cast have done an awesome job.

This story of degradation and redemption in a hellish Latin American prison

was originally a novel by Manuel Puig and then a movie starring Raul Julia and

William Hurt. That was before Terrence McNally, Fred Ebb and John Kandor

turned it into a Broadway musical.

This is not "musical" as in musical comedy, however. The closest parallel I

can think of is Peter Brook's Marat/Sade -- the portrayal of the assassination

of French revolutionary Marat as performed by the inmates of the Charenton

Asylum under the direction of the Marquis de Sade.

The premise of Kiss of the Spider Woman is the unlikely relationship that

develops when the prison warden arranges to have two incompatible inmates

share a cell. Tough and defiant Valentin is a political revolutionary who has

been brutally tortured in a vain attempt to get him to supply the names of

other "enemies" of the repressive state regime.

The mincingly effeminate window dresser, Molina, has been arrested on a morals

charge. Caught in a police trap and convicted of endangering the welfare of a

minor, he is serving an eight-year sentence.

In part the decision to put the two men together represents an extra bit of

sadism on the part of the authorities: If anything is likely to drive Valentin

mad it would be having to spend his time listening to the frivolous,

self-absorbed Queen who struts about the cell draped in kimonos and silk

scarves, fantasizing about "Aurora," the star of old B-movies he watched as a

child.

The warden has a darker purpose as well: Frustrated by Valentin's refusal to

break under "interrogation," he is counting on Molina's cowardice and

selfishness and has offered him the chance of freedom if he reports on

Valentin and gets the information they want.

But while Molina has no interest in politics, he is genuinely affected by

Valentin's decency. His growing love for his cellmate moves him to discover in

himself new reserves of strength, putting him on a collision course with the

wrath of the thugs in uniform who have total power over his existence.

While the two leading players -- Richard Pettibone as Valentin and Jackob

Hoffman as Molina -- turn in superb performances, it is the totality of this

production that make it so effective and affecting. From Bill Hughes' haunting

set, with its claustrophobic cells and grimy catwalks, to the four gifted

musicians behind the scenes and especially the five-man "chorus" who by turns

play anonymous inmates of the prison and then switch into dazzling song and

dance routines from Molina's "movies," the entire production is remarkable.

Tom Wildin, in particular, along with his partner Kevin Cooper are impressive

as they perform Mo Peitler's choreography.

The title of the play refers to a role in a 1940s B-movie that had frightened

Molina as a child. Aurora played the mysterious "Spider Woman" who was

beautiful and seductive, but whose kiss brought death. Now in the prison,

where the suffering convicts have little hope of ever returning to normal life

"over the wall," the Spider Woman becomes a metaphor for the death that may

happen at any moment.

In the interludes where Molina tells his movies as a way of blotting out the

misery and despair of prison life, Monica Merkel makes a slinky and alluring

Aurora. The real women in the two men's lives, Sarah Lee Michaels as Molina's

mother and Cathy Rose as Valentin's girlfriend, are also very good.

Director Pettibone spends her days as a choral director at Norwalk High School

and it is clear that she is not only competent at conducting the music, but

she is also a deft and forceful manager of people on stage. As a result, the

overall effect is a gripping and entertaining work that focuses on real

issues: The brutality of repressive regimes in the supposedly free world, and

the pain and self-hatred that torments homosexuals in a society that has been

encouraged to despise them.

Against this background, the drama of Valentin's discovery of human feelings

that transcend the grand political conflict and Molina's ascension to pride

and self acceptance are made clear and important, as they should be.

(Having just opened, Kiss of the Spider Woman will remain on the TheatreWorks

New Milford stage for weekend performances through August 21. Call 350-6863

for ticket details and reservations.)