Review: THE KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN at GALA Hispanic Theatre

Reviving the play for which GALA founder, the late Hugo Medrano earned a Helen Hayes Award in acting in 1994 makes a splendid way to celebrate the launch of GALA's 50th season. Impeccably acted by Rodrigo Pedreira and Martín Ruiz, this production of The Kiss of the Spider Woman movingly brings to life the daily of two very different political prisoners detained in Argentina during that country's seven-year military dictatorship (1976-1983). Manuel Puig's stage adaptation in 1983 of his own 1976 novel mixes fantasy and documentary and winds up eerily familiar to anyone in America in 2025 who regularly pays attention to the daily news.

Valentin (Pedreira) has been jailed for “revolutionary actions” against the government, Molina (Ruiz) because he's gay and a pedophile. They spar and bicker for the many reasons that their differences dictate. But, because they are cellmates, they also learn to share space, to both listen and to hear each other, and to care about people and things outside their individual wheelhouses. Watching Ruiz and Pedreira reveal the men slowly making this growth and change becomes the very real and utterly human joy of El Beso de la Mujer Araña.

With great wisdom, Director José Luis Arellano keeps it simple which further gives the production strength. Tony Cisek's spare scene design suitably captures the boring, depressing greyness of prison with a couple of walls, a platform, a bench, proving once again how much more less can be. Hailey Laroe's lighting design perfectly reflects the action—flat, chilly, and almost fluorescent when Molina and Valentin just converse in the cell, warm and glowing while Molina recounts movie plots (and costume plots and property plots and hair design, oh my!) of his favorite romantic movies, which at first really irks Valentin, but then becomes a necessary and generous distraction from the reality of prison routines. Stick around in the house during intermission, if possible, for an excellent slide show of old movie stars and stills from their mostly romantic films; we'll always have Paris.

The Kiss of the Spider Woman, a 2-hour show presented in Spanish with English surtitles, runs through September 28.