Kiss of the Spider Woman

I LOVE it--K&E's Hal Prince musicals (Cabaret, Zorba and Kiss of the Spider Woman) and of course Fosse's Chicago are IMHO their strongest work. I love nearly all their other scores, but I think they really benefit from a strong director who is there helping to shape the show from the start.

Keep in mind I saw the tour--with Chita!--when I was 13 in Vancouver. One of the most amazing theatrical experiences I had (I saw it with my grandma and was a bit concerned about the content--but she was fine even if she really was only there to see Chita live for her first time.)

The show is not without controversy though. There's a certain poster I respect terribly on here who thinks McNally's libretto in particular undermines and normalizes the themes of the novel. That may be true to some extent (the novel is a true work of art,) but I still prefer it as an adaptation to the movie which I find sometimes kinda dreadful. Frank Rich gave it some praise especially for Chita and the direction, but had serious issue on it trivializing (he saw,)politics and some issues of sexuality.

I do wonder if I'd like a production on stage not done by as strong a director as Prince (not to mention the fascinating design which was one of the first times I saw a set using projections so heavily and effectively.)

Of course this is one of those rare stories of a show coming back from the dead. The 1990 PURCHASE edition is interesting (I have an audio--half the score is different especially the pastiche numbers) as are the extremely campy photos floating around. As you probably know, it followed the book in that each "film" number was from a vastly different film (there's a navy one with chorus boys as sailors called Man Overboard,) and the Chita role--blanking on who played her--wore very campy outfits for each. One of the critics who killed the whole SUNY workshop (I'm sure you know the story--how they asked not to be reviewed, etc) suggested someone like Chita should have had the role...

For the revised version Hal Prince actually went back to his Cabaret in some ways--the song sequences, like the "limbo" scene songs in Cabaret--would, often ironically or obscurely, comment on the book scene that had just happened before. The difference of course was that Molina interacted with the sequences--since they were his fantasies.

Also, I believe this was the first sorta original musical Garth Drabinsky/Livent did. They had built their reputation in Canada with the Canadian production and tour of Phantom and Joseph--but apparently it was Garth Drabinsky who went to Prince and said he really wanted to give the show a second chance. As Hal Prince said in a making of special they did around the time, by the 90s it was rare to have maverick producers like that--who were creatively involved to an extent but also had an artistic sensibility and threw a ton of money at big, sometimes risky musicals (Livent of course, before its disastrous death, went on to create Ragtime, the Show Boat revival, Fosse, Seussical lol and Parade...)

This is the video--it's very long but a great interview with Hal Prince, Kander and Ebb, McNally, Drabinsky and Chita all talking about the musical on stage right after it opened in New York https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvQyATgC_8w

Sorry, I'm just rambling out thoughts as they occur to me... I assume you've seen the 14 minute or so press reel of clips? Their used to be a great documentary (ie infomercial) for the tour, but it seems to have been removed. Here's part one of the press reel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZmpbUF_Ha0

And here's an interesting 12 minute bit from the Spider Woman movie DVD about the making of the musical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XB3R62eZdI

Great description of Chita--my experience with the show (even though Chita was the only original lead I saw. I'll have to check my program, though Jeff Hyslop was Molina I'm pretty sure,) was very similar to yours.

Re Drabinsky--and I'm not forgiving his behavior or the fact that I'm sure I'd find him a terrible person--but in that one video when Hal says how there are no other producers like him anymore (I suppose Cam MacKintosh is to an extent but--no matter what one thinks of his big shows--he's pretty much given up it seems on trying to facilitate any new works.) I think Hal Prince probably was one of those producers if stories about his involvement in Fiddler, etc, are any indication but then of course he started just producing his own shows, and then found even that too much work. Not only would Spider Woman probably have quickly been forgotten after its try out without Drabinsky's interference, the Show Boat revival was 100% his idea, as were Ragtime and Parade (though the last one came out of discussing what ideas Prince was interested in.) The only times that seems to happen now with producers is when they decide there's a film they have the rights to and want to adapt--or maybe do another version of Grease or whatever... So... there's something to be said about that.

I forgot about Murphy performing the title song on the Kennedy Honours--

Confidential to Eric: I've almost--ALMOST--forgiven McNally because I like his libretto to DEAD MAN WALKING so much. But even there he cuts the the politically acute (and ambiguous) scenes from the film and merely points to them at the end of the opera.

Maybe Terry just isn't comfortable with political conflict? (I'm using the nickname ironically; I don't know McNally or what his friends call him.)

Updated On: 4/10/15 at 08:36 AM

Is the Audra revival still in the works?

I saw the original Broadway production while it was still in previews. I got my ticket off TKTS. There were two gay men behind me who were trying to decide what to see. I said to them, "You want to miss seeing Chita Rivera in a Tony winning performance? You can go back to your hometown and tell everyone that Chita will definitely win the Tony for this performance." They bought tickets and Chita won the Tony.

I enjoyed Chita in the role very much. IMO, her voice was perfect for the role, very low and mysterious.

For me what got in the way of the production was the chorus. Climbing the jail walls and the choreography was a bit out of place for me.

I think some of the score is excellent (Learn how not to be where you are) and some borders on the stupid ("Dear one, I don't miss you inside me." Just not one of the better lyrics).

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Gaveston, that 10 minute documentary from the film DVD about the musical I linked has Kander and Ebb and Prince talking about their many meetings for ideas from Puig who was set to write the libretto--but their were issues with him being busy and of course then he got sick and died a month after the Purchase production (which apparently he saw and conditionally loved.)

Updated On: 4/10/15 at 05:13 PM

I saw the first preview in Toronto and saw the show during its Broadway run. It’s the only time I ever saw Chita Rivera (or Brent Carver, for that matter) on stage. Good show, but far from my favorite Kander and Ebb.

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I saw the London production 3 times. I loved the production so much that it is the only time I have gone to a cast album signing event, at the old tower records in Piccadilly Circus!

It was a very strong year for new musicals in London that year, with Crazy for You, Assassins, Grand Hotel and Kiss... all up for best musical. Crazy for you won. Chita didnt even get a nomination for best actress in a musical.

Was Bebe Neuwirth still Chita's standby when the show moved to Broadway?

I'm surprised Rob Marshall isnt considering a film version, with Catherine Zeta Jones in the title role.

Updated On: 4/10/15 at 09:12 PM

GavestonPS, I've read the novel (for Spanish class independent reading so I probably missed a good deal of the subtext), and I'm curious what exactly is taken out of the novel for the stage adaptation that made it so disappointing. Care to explain?

1. In the first place, guys, I do understand that adapters have to make source material their own. I have no problem with Lerner "Americanizing" Shaw (love triumphs over class/linguistic barriers in MY FAIR LADY; the English are trapped by class and language in PYGMALION), even if Shaw himself hated the adaptation. British culture (not to mention Shaw) is strong enough to take the hit. I'm a lot more concerned with cultural appropriation when it comes to the so-called Third World, particularly a region the U.S. have historically treated with the greatest condescension.

2. Eric, I was using "Nazi heroine" as a generic term (though it is also literal in at least one case in the novel). Puig's point in the book and the play is that escapist entertainment is a fascist tactic akin to Roman bread and circuses: something to distract the common man from the authoritarianism of the government.

3. Fantod, IMO what the musical removes is, quite literally, the ****ing. Now I have other sources if I want to watch sodomy, but most Americans do not have much information on Latin American politics, particularly of the Leftist variety. The novel and play (again in my view) show two opposites (one an aesthete devoted to escapism; the other a politico devoted to leftist action) confined in a tiny space.

The course of the novel/play shows the two coming together as one: Molina agrees to aid the Leftist cause and Valentin learns the healing value of art. And in the process, they actually fall in love with one another. (No, I don't think Valentin is now literally "gay". And, yes, I realize the motivation of each is more complicated than I can explicate here.)

In the musical, I never saw Valentin do anything but manipulate Molina and I was left with one more story about how nelly queens fall in love with "real men" and isn't it so tragic yet moving how we give up our lives to butches who care for nothing except how to use us?

THAT is a gross misappropriation of Latin American Leftism. It offends me as a gay man and as a person of Progressive politics. Hell, it offends me as an American because it is precisely the Conservative argument we have used to intervene militarily, time and time again, in S.A.

4. Eric, maybe I would have liked the musical version better if I hadn't known the other versions, but then shame on me.

What almost certainly affected me was knowing the creative team had assembled at one of their Connecticut estates to decide how to pander to an audience that can afford $200 per ticket. "Let's give 'em a cardboard Commie and a chiffon Homo from the McCarthy Era! And then we'll throw in Chita! Fags love her!"

Updated On: 4/11/15 at 09:08 AM

I don't have anything important to add to this thread, but did go to a concert presentation at 54 Below last October on Columbus Day weekend. It was the late show on a Sunday evening and Anthony Crivello had fallen ill and had to cancel, so it wasn't super full but still featured some great singing.

Afterwards, hit up Hustlaball, so had my cake and my f***ing too.

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"2. Eric, I was using "Nazi heroine" as a generic term (though it is also literal in at least one case in the novel). Puig's point in the book and the play is that escapist entertainment is a fascist tactic akin to Roman bread and circuses: something to distract the common man from the authoritarianism of the government."

No way. It's MUCH more complex than that (and obviously the musical doesn't even approach the complexity.) Having read countless interviews with Puig when I did a research paper on Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (among some other things not by him,) I think he'd be pretty upset if that was the take away from his work. That is ONE small aspect but equally (or more so) he seems to think it is the only way to deal with such horrors--and especially by the 80s he seemed to fall increasingly into that belief.