Ed F. Martin and Adrián González in ANW’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. [Photo by Craig Schwartz]
A Noise Within, as it does consistently, takes its newest audiences to the dark confines of a South American prison cell, in a country straining under authoritarian rule.
In A Noise Within’s latest production, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Molina (Ed F. Martin) is a preening and proud queer who keeps the horror and darkness of prison life at bay by telling and re-telling his favorite movies’ story lines to his cellmate, Valentin (Adrian Gonzalez), a brooding but sensitive, erstwhile Che Guevara-type, imprisoned by the oppressive regime.
Valentin spends his empty days reading and studying, but is admittedly fascinated and entertained by Molina’s Hollywood tales, like a child eager for a bedtime story.
Their years together form an unlikely bond.
Author and playwright Manuel Puig, who lived in Argentina during its chilling “Dirty War” years, wrote the book as an exile in 1976 in New York City, adapting it for the stage in 1983.
As director Michael Michetti reflected, “It’s an amazing story, one that takes on new relevance in today’s polarized climate. The idea that two people from such different worlds, stuck together in this oppressive setting, are able to grow to understand, and even love, one another is beautiful and inspiring.
“It has a lot of humor and playfulness,” Michetti continued, “despite the serious nature of the story, and people who might be familiar with the film or Broadway musical version will be surprised to find out how much language drives the play. We, the audience, are trapped in that show with Valentin and Molina, and, just like them, our only escape is to use our imagination.“
Martin is vivid and spot-on as the flamboyant Molina, with his poignant and detailed attempts to affect the female persona and mindset. An ever present scarf and subtle touches like movie star photos taped to the cell walls, and dark blue velvet lounging pants, help define his character.
He relies on his memory to recreate movie stories and he manages to keep up the storyline of one fictional movie in particular, “The Panther Woman,” throughout the play’s narrative. (For two of the six movie plots that form the structure of the play, author Puig has borrowed from several horror movies, particularly the Val Lewton films, “The Cat People (1943)”, “I Walked With A Zombie (1943),” and Victor Halperin’s “White Zombie (1932).”
Martin relishes his storytelling, deftly doling out the plot like candy to his entranced audience of one, while Gonzales is particularly apt as the revolutionary Valentin, as manly and broad-shouldered as Molina is soft and yielding.
Scenic designer Tesshi Nakagawa, and lighting designer Jared A. Sayeg have created a particularly detailed and effective stage space for Kiss…, as A Noise Within consistently does for all its productions.
Kiss of the Spider Woman, though wordy, perhaps by necessity, moves briskly through its story, and is an intense, beautiful and heartbreaking visit to the human psyche’s dark places.
Kiss of the Spider Woman runs through April 23, at a Noise Within Theater, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA. www.anoisewithin.org. (626) 356–3100.
