Theatre / Reviews
Review: Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Bristol Old Vic – ‘A hugely impressive piece of theatre – get caught in its web’
Leicester’s Curve Theatre brings a new production of Kiss of the Spider Woman – the musical based on Manuel Puig’s novel and the subsequent film to Bristol as part of a short tour.
The original musical opened on Broadway to rave reviews, garnering seven Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Original Score. But can a big stage musical succeed in a theatre the size of the Bristol Old Vic?
The story is set in a cruel Argentinian prison during a period of aggressive restrictions on human rights. A flamboyant window dresser, Molina (Fabian Soto Pacheco), has been imprisoned for sexual crimes and shares a cell with Marxist revolutionary Valentin (George Blagden).
The show is blessed with superb (and largely neglected) songs composed by the legendary songwriting duo Kander and Ebb, responsible for Cabaret and Chicago, two of the greatest scores of the second half of the twentieth century.
As in those earlier works, Spider Woman takes musical theatre into a darker realm, although one characterised by hope.
Directed by Paul Foster, the production focuses on the uneasy relationship between the two men, menaced by the prison authorities keen to uncover Valentin’s comrades.
Set design by David Woodhead is simple enough: bars with an overhead gantry, along with a roughly hewn back wall on which video is back-projected.
Molina manages to exist by escaping into the movies playing out in his head, and in these moments the stark setting is transformed into a glamorous, glitzy showbiz scene imbued with Latin rhythms and sumptuous dance routines.
Molina’s idolised screen goddess, Aurora, is brought to life by a captivating Anna-Jane Casey. The episodes could so easily collapse into a risibly high-camp gorgeousness, but aided by exquisite costumes created by Gabriella Slade, and the power of the narrative, they are simply magical.
Not only are all three leads utterly watchable, convincing and dynamic, but the entire company excels.
Casting directors take a bow. The strangeness of the show is magnified by the spoken delivery, which borders on a mannered, operatic style, accompanied by a reverberating amplification during the songs. And it works.
Leicester’s Curve Theatre brings a new production of Kiss of the Spider Woman – the musical based on Manuel Puig’s novel
Howard Hudson’s needle-sharp lighting and Matt Peploe’s haunting sound transition scenes from a nightmarish array of hypodermic needle-waving doctors to glimpses of other brutalised prisoners in a trice.
What elevates the whole show from a more traditional musical theatre production is the intimacy that the company brings to the story. Molina, the silk kimono-wearing dreamer, and the resolute Valentin learn from each other and bond, so that when Molina is pressured into betrayal, we feel both their pain.
Aurora’s transformation into the spider woman is genuinely both terrifying and mesmerising and Molina’s knowledge that succumbing to her kiss will bring his death ratchets up the tension. Arachnophobes beware!
“Arachnophobes beware!”
The finale satisfies and permits a level of ambiguity to underline what a hugely impressive piece of theatre this is. A show of great strength from text to execution to design. Get caught up in its web.
Kiss of the Spiderwoman is at Bristol Old Vic on April 29-May 16 at 7.30pm, with additional 2.30pm matinee shows on Thursday and Saturday (no shows Sunday). Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.
All photos: Marc Brenner
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