Recreating the Spider Woman: Chase, Diaz & Foster

Even after winning seven Tony Awards in 1993, including Best Score, Best Book and Best Musical, Kiss of the Spider Woman is still a relatively rarely performed show. As part of its Kander and Ebb celebration, however, Arlington's Signature Theatre is bringing the dark musical out into the light for one of its first major revivals in fifteen years.

A dark twist on the Golden Age musical comedies, Kiss of the Spider Woman creates a horrific world in a Latin American prison, where one captive man spends his days daydreaming of his favorite movie musicals. Brutal violence is matched with joyous dance numbers, and the vibrant fantasy sequences serve to keep the lethal reality at bay.

Based on the eponymous and controversial novel by Argentine writer Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman is about as dark and complex as a musical can get. The juxtaposition of gritty reality with opulent fantasy requires not only a strong director, but exceptionally strong stars who can make both worlds believable. In the leading roles at Signature are Hunter Foster as Molina, a gay window-dresser imprisoned for "corrupting a minor;" Will Chase as Valentin, a political revolutionary being "interrogated" for information on his comrades; and Natascia Diaz as both Aurora, the movie star of Molina's dreams, and the Spider Woman, her lethal alter-ego.

"It's a great part," Foster says of the role that won William Hurt an Oscar in the 1985 non-musical film, and Brent Carver a Tony for the original Broadway production. In order to connect to Molina, and to make Molina connect to an audience, Foster had to find what was universal in the character. "You have to draw upon the things you know to make a character real and alive," he says. "I obviously am not from Argentina, I've never been in prison, so there's a lot of things I don't know. But I think that falling in love is something that's universal, that we all can relate to and know what it's like-- whether you're gay or straight... I think fear, alienation, feeling like an outcast, those are universal feelings that we all go through that I can apply to the character."

The role of Valentin gave Will Chase a chance to go beyond the roles he's performed on Broadway. "I've played a lot of angry characters," he says of his previous roles, and cites Roger in Rent, Chris in Miss Saigon and Jerry in The Full Monty as examples. "But there's this whole other level of anger that this guy has," he says of Valentin. "It's so deep-rooted." To prepare for the role, Chase studied up on Argentina's "Dirty War" in the 1970s, and looked back at his earlier characters. The best part about playing the role, he says, "is drawing on a lot of stuff that I haven't been able to use onstage in the past. So it's been kinda fun for me to explore some darker stuff in myself. … Even watching the news, it's easy to get angry. It's freeing myself up to tap into that anger."

Playing a character at the crossroad between life and death, Natascia Diaz had to learn to metaphorically paint "not only with broader strokes, but with a different kind of paint altogether," as she described it. In trying to create a movie star, she explains, she lost sight of being a stage star. "When movie stars would do those big numbers in the movies, they could be all subtle, because the camera was up in their face. They had that aura," she says. To convey that quality without the benefit of a camera, she says, she needed to learn to "explode" on the stage, becoming larger-than-life, and a true diva. She also had the challenge of creating a character that only exists in the imagination of another character, and appears, Athena-like, from his mind. "I thought of her as if she was [Molina] in drag," she says, "and the joy he would feel if he was in my body, doing what I'm doing. The agony of someone living a life that they didn't choose… We see that all over the news, now: people have circumstances that they didn't choose."

Unusually for a modern musical, the plot of Kiss of the Spider Woman is more in the book than in the songs, many of which are the fantasies of the characters. This creates a particular challenge for the two male leads, who cannot rely on songs to explore their characters. Rather, Chase and Foster had to develop their roles through dialogue. "The great thing about Terrence McNally's book is that he really explores this relationship, and it doesn't just happen quickly," Chase says. "There's some intensity before these two end up being friends, but it takes its time, and it's kind of nice to be able to be able to get to play that every night. I keep telling Hunter that he's doing the musical," he continues cheerfully, "'cause he's in every scene, every scene of the show, and I'm in the play." Foster agrees that much of the story takes place in the book: "A lot of the action is written in the words, so not much of the action is in the songs," he says. But, he argues, he is as much in a play as Chase is. "There are definitely moments when the action is in the songs," he says, "but for us, a lot of times, when I start the song, Natascia takes over, because she's my fantasy. She does the big numbers in my head, and I'm having to envision them and see them. In a lot of ways, it feels like a play for me as well."

Equally unusual for a revival was the participation of the show's composer, John Kander, who also approved the casting and any necessary changes made to the production. Each of the three stars had the opportunity to talk with Kander, and each praised his contributions to the process. Chase has known Kander since the composer came to visit his alma mater, Oberlin, when Chase was a student there. "I was like his chaperon when he was there," he recalls. "He remembered me from there, but didn't realize I was an actor, and I had to go sing for John just so he could approve. But we hit it off again!" he adds with a laugh. Foster praised Kander's insight into Molina.  "He talked about Molina's imagination, and how all these movies are probably embellished and made-up," he says. "It allowed me to think of [Molina] as having an even wilder imagination that I could possibly have thought of before." Diaz was particularly moved by her meetings with Kander, who called her "the real thing" upon meeting her. "When you're sitting there with this 80-year-old man and he's listening to something he wrote and it's bringing tears to his eyes… I won't forget this ever in my life," she says.

Diaz also credits Chita Rivera, who created Aurora on Broadway and will be starring in The Visit at Signature with her participation not only in this show, but for her career, as well. "If Chita hadn't existed, I wouldn't have a career," she says simply, pointing out that many people "want to cast the blonde" in major roles. "She melded so beautifully into the mainstream, and people saw what she had and they took it and ran with it… She has sort of iconicised herself in the roles she's done in a way that speaks to me. And I identify very much with the part she's played… They speak to all my skill sets as a dancer, as an actress and as a singer. She was very fortunate to have these roles written for her," Diaz continues. "For someone who sings and dances and acts, these roles are feasts. Absolute feasts. And I'm just having the time of my life, getting to do these three things with such fullness." Between meeting Rivera and working with Kander, Diaz says that she is more inspired than intimidated. "These people! Come pinch me! Somebody pinch me!" she laughs brightly. "These people have spirits that don't age and don't fizzle out. And I feel it. I think it's always better to welcome the next generation and encourage the next generation, and I feel welcome in meeting John-- and my God, you get invited to do a part that you didn't have to audition for! That, to me, says, 'Come on, honey. Come and take the stage. We want what you've got.' It's an open-armed invitation, and it feels like the sun coming up."

For Foster, the greatest challenge in creating Molina was creating a man who wants to be a woman. "And not even a contemporary woman," Foster says. "I think he sees himself as a woman of the thirties and forties on film." To that end, he watched old movies and found mannerisms from the heroines that he could use as Molina. "The greatest challenge is trying to not make him a stereotype," he says. "'Cause you can go really easily into that very queeny place where it's a stereotype, and I didn't want to cheapen him. I didn't want to make him just a gay stereotype. I want him to be real.  And I think if you went to the stereotype, people wouldn't care… I want him to be likable," he continues. "Obviously, at first, people are going to see him as this queeny guy in prison, but I hope people see beyond that... I want him to be someone that people care about."

"What's great about the character is that he wants the world to be perfect," Foster continues. "He wants the world to be like the movies, and obviously, we don't live in a world like that. So in a way, he's an optimist, because he wishes the world could be beautiful." Referring to a line from the script, he says that Molina "wants his movies to remind him that there is beauty and kindness and bravery and things like that, that there are great things in the world. And he needs that because he's living in a hellhole."

Similarly, Chase found making his character connect to the audience to be a great challenge. "There's got to be something accessible about the character, even if they're completely despicable," he says, and references the violent characters in Sweeney Todd as an example. "You can't play, as an actor, 'accessible' or 'likable.' You try to find things that are real, and you add Terrence McNally's book to that. And the great thing about what John and Fred do is they write real emotion in their songs and real lyrics that people would sing or say. So it's got all those things together to make a character almost likable—if that's the right word—but certainly accessible. People can tap into those characters." As another example, he refers to Elphaba in Wicked. "None of us knows a green witch," he says, "But we can tap into the longings of someone trying to get out of the box and do something wonderful in their lives. And I think people can certainly tap into the anger that [Valentin] has with the state of affairs in the world today… He's a guy like all of us."

Ultimately, Chase says, Kiss of the Spider Woman is about "two people coming into each other's lives and changing one another. And in that wonderful way that John and Fred do, they take something completely devastating and tragic and turn it on its head." For Foster, "it's a real love story, above and beyond anything else." He compares the show to The Drowsy Chaperone, and notes the similar themes of escapism and fantasy. "What's so great about the play is, obviously, the fantasy life is not real, and it's only through action [that] he truly finds happiness."

Diaz agrees. "It's not unlike any other Kander and Ebb [show], which is escape," she says about the musical's theme. "The power of beauty, the longing for beauty in one's life. It permeates Chicago-- they're swimming in it. And Cabaret, my God! Everyone is trying to escape and relieve themselves of the burden of the ugliness their situation. Sometimes the characters languish in it, like in Chicago. But in the writing there's a tone of tongue-in-cheekness that you sort-of can't miss. It's irony. It's just irony. Artistic escape. It's at the heart of any artistic endeavor. It's about making beauty where there is none," she continues. "Trying to sublimate a difficult situation by the bootstraps of your heartstrings. The courage that it takes to create something beautiful where there is none is a highly theatrical concept, and I think it's the reason why a lot of us do what we do. We wait for, train for and wait for those moments that 'make it all worthwhile.' And I think this speaks to that: the desperation with which he creates these images."

Photo Credits Walter McBride/Retna