Kiss of the Spider Woman: Rodrigo Pedreira and Martin Ruiz – Photo: Daniel Martinez
Reviving a production that proved an international success for the GALA Hispanic Theatre in 1994, the company launches its landmark 50th anniversary season with an incisive, atmospheric El Beso de la Mujer Araña (Kiss of the Spider Woman), directed by José Luis Arellano.
In the 1994 production, the late GALA co-founder Hugo Medrano earned a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor as Molina, the first ever for a Spanish-language performance. The role of the sensitive, conflicted queer prisoner remains in good hands, portrayed here by Martín Ruiz, opposite Rodrigo Pedreira as passionate revolutionary Valentín.
Sharing a cell in an Argentinian prison during the military dictatorship in this novel-turned-stage play by Argentine writer Manuel Puig, Molina and Valentín engage in a pas de deux that feels close to romance. Never mind that Valentín cherishes his woman Marta, also a revolutionary, awaiting him on the outside.
Still, inside this cell, seduction is stirring, though subtly, and primarily through the suggestion of mere words. Molina whiles away their time in the barren cell recounting in luscious detail the films of his favorite actress, creating a portal of escape for himself and Valentín.
Molina is written to be a captivating storyteller, as we would hope any actor onstage to be in service to their role. But especially in this role, Molina’s vivid tales must transport us into cinematic worlds of romance and intrigue, a challenge Argentinian actor Ruiz meets soundly, conveying the character’s relish at keeping his audience in suspense.
More than once, Molina ends a movie story on a cliffhanger, and not only is Valentín hooked, but so is the audience. For Molina’s purposes, of course, hooking Valentín is more the point.
Secretly, the queer raconteur, incarcerated for sexual conduct with a minor, has been placed in the cell by authorities to gather information about Valentín’s anti-government activities and comrades. An unwilling informant, Molina deceives his cellmate while also falling in love with him.
His affections are genuine, though all of his intentions are not, requiring a duality in the performance that Ruiz manages gracefully, embodying the tension between Molina’s attraction to Valentín, and his mission as an agent of his cellmate’s persecution.
In his film stories, Molina invokes a Spider Woman who spins her web onscreen, but the story’s true femme fatale emerges in their cell. As the fiery rebel caught in the web, Pedreira offers a more demonstrative approach with a Valentín who wears his emotions too patly on his sleeve.
When he’s mad, he’s raging. When he’s sad, he’s maudlin. The effect isn’t always convincing, although Pedreira does excel in Valentín’s role as a captivated listener. Both actors forge a dynamic connection.
Their rapport, alternately tense and tender, benefits from Arellano’s organic staging of the pair within the evocatively bare space of Tony Cisek’s prison set. Maintaining that sense of natural movement with just two actors talking on a practically empty stage poses a deceptively tough challenge over two acts.
Yet, Arellano, greatly abetted by Hailey LaRoe’s effective lighting design, keeps the production visually interesting, even in those moments where the only action is whatever fiction we imagine in our heads as Molina spins tales to soothe and seduce his Valentín.
El Beso de la Mujer Araña (★★★☆☆) runs through Sept. 28 at GALA Hispanic Theatre, 3333 14th St. NW. Performances are in Spanish with English surtitles. Tickets are $27 to $52, with discounts for seniors, military, groups of 10+, and patrons under 25. Call 202-234-7174 or visit www.galatheatre.org.
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