29 April – 16 May
Revived for the first time in the UK after a 30-year interval, this Leicester Curve, Bristol Old Vic and Mayflower Southampton production of the musical adaptation of Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel is something to celebrate. It is a piece that has been truly blessed with a cast and production team that have combined outstandingly to bring Puig’s multi-layered parable of emotional survival under extreme duress to life. This is theatre at its quintessential best, with searing, memorable performances all round, costume and set design to be wowed by, and voices and orchestration absolutely on point throughout. The Old Vic has a mega hit on its hands.
For The Kiss of the Spider Woman, Puig, a cineaste and LGBTQ activist during his lifetime, mostly in exile, fleeing the state-sponsored death squads of Argentina’s Anticommunist Alliance, drew on his love of film and its alternate reality as a coping mechanism. The lyrics (by Fred Ebb) “You have to learn how not to be where you are,” neatly sums up the raison d’être of the piece.
Molina and Valentin (played by Fabian Soto Pacheco and George Blagden) find themselves unlikely cell mates in a Buenos Aires jail. Molina, gay, a window dresser, has been incarcerated for sexual impropriety with a minor, Valentin for his revolutionary left-wing political views. Under Paul Foster’s direction, and guided by set designer David Woodhead’s clever illuminated devices, we enter both the hellscape of the prison and a fantasy grotto illuminated by the extraordinary Anna-Jane Casey as both the film star Aurora that Molina idolises and the ever-lurking Spider Woman, one of Aurora’s roles, with the promise of death on her lips.
Kiss is an emotional rollercoaster taken to greater depths by the talents of song writers John Kander and Fred Ebb, who already had hits Chicago and Cabaret on their CV when they turned their attention to Puig’s novel. Pacheco, as Molina, is quoted as saying “ This is my biggest dream ever. It’s incredible to be here because I have been obsessed with this score and this story for years.” Pacheco has seized his opportunity with a performance of enormous sensitivity, able to convey so much with facial expression and body language.
Director Foster has stacked this claustrophobic space with menace. Uniformed guard Damian Buhagiar and prison warden Jay Rincon stalk the barred confines of Molina and Valentin’s cell with real threat. Offstage we can hear the screams of those being tortured, while hooded and beaten prisoners are paraded before our two protagonists as means to terrify and subdue them. Valentin is very much the warden’s target. He wants names from him and the easily subdued Molina becomes his instrument.
The story unfolds in such a way that the very straight Valentin’s rejection of Molina’s gayness begins to dissolve into friendship and later, intimacy. Blagden takes Valentin from cornered, passionate political renegade to gentle lover in emotionally rational steps. Both he and Pacheco as Molina have the sweetest of singing voices. When they combine it is sublime, such as in Dressing Them Up and I Draw The Line. And later, with Aurora, Anything For Him becomes a moving hymn to human affection and the power of love. The seven-piece band (hidden from view) provide a vibrant platform for the songs.
Lighting up the stage – the object of Molina’s dreams – is film star Aurora. Anna-Jane Casey, adorned with a series of scintillating wardrobe creations by costume designer Gabriella Slade gives Molina’s fantasy figure memorable zest. Accompanied by a dance ensemble tighter than the Strictly crew, her undeniable razzmatazz is a joy to witness and a perfect antidote to the otherwise dark narrative enacted around her. We can see Molina’s solace in such a figure. And, as the Spider Woman herself, hissing her s’s to great effect, finally claims her man in a deadly embrace, the audience is on its feet barely able to contain its appreciation for a story magnificently told.
★★★★★ Simon Bishop 1 May 2026
Photography credit: Marc Brenner
