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Set in 1970s Argentina during the infamous "Dirty War," the show focuses on two cellmates, Molina, the flamboyantly gay window dresser jailed for his homosexuality, and Valentin, the fiery, passionate revolutionary and political prisoner. When the torture gets too horrific, when the walls feel like they're closing in, Molina -- and later Valentin as well -- escape into an MGM movie musical fantasy world, where the femme fatale Aurora seduces handsome young men before killing them. Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times, "Kiss of the Spider Woman is nothing less than an investigation of what it means to be a man, in the highest moral sense, whatever one’s sexual orientation." Newsday called the show "the only new show with a wild heart and a fresh eye, the only one that budges the form in a seriously extravagant theatrical direction, the only one with a book that's stylish, the only one with an accessible gotta-dance score that isn't exclusively content to sound like music we've heard before." The New York Daily News called it "compelling, beautiful, funny, and moving," and said that it "transforms what might be cruel melodrama into something provocative, disquieting, and operatically haunting." The New York Daily News called it "compelling, beautiful, funny, and moving, [with] a cinematic fluidity and a poetic charge." The show won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book. Kiss of the Spider Woman is show like no other, overwhelming, almost unbearably emotional, and ultimately healing. Check out some of New Line's rehearsal photos. |
