[Reviewed at Orange County Performing Arts Center, Dec. 1996] To make a musical of Manuel Puig's novel, "Kiss of the Spider Woman," Terrence McNally, John Kander and Fred Ebb simply put Puig's story on stage as a play, then superimposed on it 20-some musical numbers, most of which have nothing to do with the plot but feature a dazzling performance by Chita Rivera.
In the touring production, Rivera plays a 1930s B-movie queen named Aurora whom Molina, one of two men confined to a small cell in a South American prison, idolized as a child. To keep his sanity, Molina reenacts her movies in his cell, with Aurora appearing as a figment of his imagination. Molina is a defiantly swishy homosexual while his cellmate, Valentin, is an intense Marxist revolutionary who rejects Molina's attempts at friendship. The way in which the two finally become friends, with one willing to die for the other, is the major part of Puig's novel and also of the musical, with Rivera's flashy, high kicking performance in colorful costumes just cake decoration. This combination of emotionally-charged story and eye-filling musical numbers makes for a never-dull evening, and Rivera's performance is matched by those of Juan Chioran as Molina and Dorian Harewood as Valentin.
Chioran's Molina, under his unabashedly gay exterior, has an inner strength and dignity, enabling him to break through Valentin's hostility, as vividly portrayed by Harewood. Both men have strong singing voices for two songs that do fit the play.
Fine supporting performances come from Merle Louise as Molina's mother and Lauren Goler-Kosarin as Valenine's lover, both seen and heard in the men's imaginations, and by Michael McCormick as the warden who tempts Molina with offers of freedom if he will spy on Valentin and reveal his connections in the revolutionary movement.
