Kiss of the Spider Woman

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 11:56pm

With The Visit premiering on Broadway this month, I thought it would be good to examine another very serious musical by Kander and Ebb with Chita Rivera. Would anybody who saw the original London, Toronto, or Broadway productions care to share their memories of this show?

I love the cast album, and I think it has the best orchestrations of any cast album I've ever heard. The "grinding" scale in the introduction actually makes me nervous every time I hear it. 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 12:18am

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

[kyle33nyc]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 1:03am

I saw it on Broadway about a month after it opened, and it was / remains one of the best shows I have ever seen.  Chita was perfect, Brent Carver was perfect, Anthony Crivello was perfect.  It seemed wonderfully dark and challenging, yet still accessible for a smart audience.  I loved the music, the book, the choreography, the staging...  You could tell that a master like Hal Price was in control, and passionately exploring topics of interest to him.  It makes me crazy to think how amazing it would have been to see Prince's original Follies production...

Back then I didn't know much about Chita Rivera, but I stuck around after the show and got her autograph.  I'm not really that impressed by celebrities, but she had an amazingly regal quality that is balanced with her down to earth friendliness.  When I hear stories of how the Broadway gypsies and crew members love working with her, it is easy to imagine why.  

The previous response brought up a great point about Drabinsky having a big influence.  Usually producers just have money to gamble on shows and not so heavily involved in the creative choices once their team has been selected.  But despite his questionable business dealings, Drabinsky and the Livent organization did the theater world a favor by sticking by this show and giving it the royal treatment (not to mention Ragtime and Showboat).

I think Vanessa Williams is a great talent, but felt that no one could truly replace Chita in the role.  But Donna Murphy's take on the title number at the Kennedy Honors got me thinking that I'd at least be curious to see a smart revival with a great star.  It would certainly be a fun stretch for Audra McDonald. 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 2:06am

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--

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 3:43am

I'm by no means an expert on Broadway producing, but my impression based on articles that i've read on this and similar websites is that David Stone is a very artistically-involved producer.  He seems to have identified works that he likes (e.g. Next to Normal) or wants to work on (e.g. If/Then) and then nurtures the artists through the creative process, stays involved in show revisions, etc..  I for one would gladly go and see any show that i hear he's produced.

Back on the original topic - i did see the original Broadway production.  It was only my second Broadway show and my third professional production that i had seen to that point, so i don't really have much to compare with, but i remember finding it very moving and powerful.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 8:36am

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

[HorseTears]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 8:41am

Eric, you're a fountain of knowledge.  Thanks for all the great YT clips.  I, too, saw the national tour w/ Chita in the mid 90s.  In the pre-YouTube era, my only exposure to Chita had been on the Spiderwoman cast recording.  I was a kid then, so I don't recall everything about the production.  I just remember being dazzled by Prince's fluid staging, the impressive projections and designs, K&E's dark, romantic score and, of course, Chita's electric presence.  So glad I got to see  her when she was still a legit triple threat.  

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 9:06am

Is the Audra revival still in the works?

[jayinchelsea]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 9:08am

We attended the original production of KISS at Suny Purchase the same night Frank Rich was there, and felt very much as he did. Here is an interesting (and prophetic) quote from his original mostly negative review:

"Though Mr. Kander and Mr. Ebb have written some typically amusing parodies for their movie musical, even their better numbers are defeated by the routine choreography of Susan Stroman and by the performance of Lauren Mitchell as the star of Molina's celluloid visions. What is needed in this role is not, perhaps, a mysterious reincarnation of Rita Hayworth (which is what Sonia Braga brought to the film version) but a dazzling musical-comedy presence of the Chita Rivera sort who has always ignited the flashiest Kander-Ebb songs. Ms. Mitchell has neither the personality nor the vocal authority for the task."

Well, Frank got his wish, and Chita "got the part." I admit that I avoided the show on Broadway for a while, because I wasn't convinced that it could be much better, but finally went and loved it. By bringing in a star to give equal weight to the role of Aurora, and recasting Molina with the brilliant Brent Carver, the show found its balance, and became the long-running hit it deserved, (However, did not agree with many of the critics that Vanessa Williams was as good or better than Chita when she was the replacement; Vanessa was sexy and sultry, and sang well, but did not bring the star aura much at all; imo, frankly was as dull as she later was in the revival of INTO THE WOODS, and did not move nearly as well as Chita did). 

Rumors of a revival are in the air, and that would be wonderful. 

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 11:56am

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).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 5:01pm

Ugh, I cringe whenever any lyric (more common in current pop song) says "inside of me" or whatever and means it literally.  I'm far from a prude, but ick.

 

Jay thanks for that full quote--I couldn't remember who suggested Chita.  Apparently Drabinsky must have read it too, as she was his idea.

 

Fascinating to read how you agree that the Broadway version was a major improvement, but you just mention the cast.  No thoughts on how completely re-conceptualizing it helped as well?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 5:13pm

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

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 5:23pm

Anyone know the story about the choreography credit?  Vincent Patterson--best known for Madonna tours and music videos for Jackson, etc--is listed as main choreo with Rob Marshall as "Additional."

Yet, in that docu they talk about how Rob Marshall (his first Broadway credit) did Where You Are and the other Chita bits--and I remember hearing that Vincent was not working and dropped early on (was he the only Toronto choreographer?  I think Where You Are was a late addition.)  Which I guess would make sense as often in those situations you still retain credit--but did any of his stuff stay?

Updated On: 4/10/15 at 05:23 PM

[canmark]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 6:01pm

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.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 6:08pm

CanMark--do you remember what songs were added?

[TBFL]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 9:12pm

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]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 10:59pm

Um, I like Chita Rivera as much as the next queen, but we're all clear that the Spider Woman is an icon of Nazi propaganda, yes? No, I didn't think so.

(Ultimately the problem is in the writing, not with Miss Rivera. The story is about two political criminals, not about a glamorous movie star. It isn't hunky-dory that Molina escapes into his identification with his Nazi heroine, it is his excuse to do nothing to better his world.)

The fact that even Rich thought Rivera's part needed star power to hold its own shows how far the musical is from one of the great novels of the 20th century. (In the novel, BTW, the Spider Woman material appears almost entirely in footnotes. In the straight play, it is only described by Molina and never depicted.)

 

(Eric, that Puig liked the version he saw doesn't tell me much. For one thing, I didn't see that version; for another, lots of authors have lost sight of their own work while being swept up in the glamor of a Broadway (or Hollywood) adaptation.)

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 11:07pm

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?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/10/15 at 11:39pm

Gaveston, that's an incredibly simplistic take on the Spider Woman in the novel--and I think you have to realize that it's not used in the musical (it's largely ignored in the movie as well,) that doesn't mean they didn't understand it--but that they went in a different direction.

The role that became Aurora was not Aurora in the PURCHASE version Rich is commenting on so your comment to his comment doesn't hold a lot of weight--she was a variety of Rita Heyward type movie stars at the time (a Puig idea.)  It was an utterly different vision.  You are right of course that an artist can lose site of their work (though it doesn't always make it inferior.)  And it does sound from a variety of sources what Puig was most excited about was recreating moments from his beloved movie musicals so maybe defanging the political aspects didn't bother him (again not saying that's good or not.)

DO you think you'd like the musical more if you didn't know the source material?  I know you read Valentin comes off as a con who is not transformed in the musical (though that was not my take away from it, but you are not alone in your thought there.)

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/11/15 at 9:08am

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

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/11/15 at 2:53pm

"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"

Back then it was $85 per ticket.

[inception]

Posted: 4/11/15 at 3:41pm

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.

 

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/11/15 at 4:16pm

Those are all very interesting arguments, Gaveston, and I have put the musical script at the top of my list of things to buy from Samuel French, as well as the english translation of the book. However, you seem to be assuming that the creators intentionally made the show homophobic, which I might find a little difficult to believe considering that Kander, Ebb, and McNally are all homosexuals.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/11/15 at 4:54pm

"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.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/11/15 at 4:59pm

"

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!"

"

 

I know and appreciate how passionate you are about this--and I don't and honestly can't completely dismiss your points.  But c'mon.  Yes, obviously there was no love for the source material--Fred Ebb (who had the idea,) read the novel one day and saw big dollar signs and then worked hard with Puig, Prince and Kander--and later McNally--to work on a way to pander to fags and blue haired women.  Because those people love on stage defecation and torture scenes!  I'm not so naive to doubt that there was some talk about what a mainstream audience would tolerate, and how far they could push while still mounting a multi million musical.  But, yeah...  (and I still maintain that the movie didn't really push those issues any better.)

Contrarily, as much as I hate to say this as I'm not a massive fan by any means, but I think this goes to show you can't hold McNally nearly as responsible for the changes as you seem to have in the past (at least when it has come up before you tend to mention him and leave Prince and especially Kander and Ebb out of your criticism.)