You may have read Manuel Puig’s novel. You might have watched its Oscar-winning movie adaptation. If you’re a musical theater buff, you’ve probably seen it set to the songs of Kander and Ebb. But chances are you haven’t experienced the powerful theatrical two-hander Puig himself adapted from his book, just one of many reasons not to miss Kiss Of The Spider Woman’s stunningly acted, directed, and designed debut at A Noise Within.

Like Simon Callow and Mark Rylance in the West End, William Hurt and Raul Julia on the silver screen, and Brent Carver and Anthony Crivello on Broadway, Ed F. Martin and Adrián González play a pair South Americans incarcerated in a two-prisoner cell for distinctly different reasons.

Martin’s Molina finds himself imprisoned for “corruption of a [presumably male] minor” while Gonzalez’s Valentin is there for his participation in antigovernmental thoughts and actions deemed verboten in 1970s Argentina.

And though the room they’re locked into may have amenities not usually associated with a jail cell (a gas burner for boiling water and heating food, for one), it’s still a whole lot danker and dingier and more cramped than anything either of them have known before.

No wonder then that Molina prefers escaping to movie memories he congers up, then relates to Valentine as a means of forgetting where they are, and where they’re likely to stay for a good long while.

Indeed, the first fifteen minutes or so of Puig’s play (translated into English by Allan Baker) have the two men (and us in the audience) mesmerized by film femme fatale “Irina,” said to turn into a man-mauling black panther when sexually aroused.

Before long, however, the play’s focus turns from fantasy to reality, the better to explore the budding friendship of two men who could hardly be more dissimilar, the flamboyantly queer Molina brewing tea for two, taking maternal care of the decidedly hetero Valentin when the latter takes ill, and even giving his cellmate a sponge bath when accumulated filth becomes too much to bear.

Then about a third of the way into the play, information is revealed to the audience (but not to Valentin) that changes everything, and raises the stakes for both men to life-or-death levels.

Puig’s novel may be most widely known for the film that won William Hurt a Best Actor Oscar or the Broadway musical that took home six Tonys, but the two-character play format may actually work best for the tale he has to tell.

Minus fantasy sequences to ooh and aah over (and no Sonia Braga or Chita Rivera to bring them to life), whatever escape they (and we) make from the drudgery of prison life happens only in our imaginations.

Not only that, but as Molina’s movie memories become fewer and farther between, Puig’s play opts to focus on their burgeoning relationship, one that increasingly blurs the line between gay and straight.

It’s potent stuff made even more potent by Michael Michetti’s incisive direction and the breathtaking star turns of two perfectly-cast leading men.

L.A. stage treasure Martin outdoes himself as someone who might today identify as a trans woman rather than as a gay man, and despite Molina’s flamboyance, it’s the subtleties of Martin’s deeply touching work that make his performance one to remember.

González matches Martin every step of the way as a man discovering that who we love may not be as black-and-white as he has believed, and as manly as Valentin most certainly is, it’s the tenderness and compassion González gives him that will stick in your mind.

Scenic designer Tesshi Nakagawa’s one-room set is a minutely detailed marvel (kudos too to props designer Stephen Taylor) that reveals a stunning eleventh-hour surprise, and Jared A. Sayeg’s exquisite lighting, Robert Oriol’s expert sound design, Alex Mansour’s guitar-and-violin-scored music, and Carolyn Mazuca’s just-right pair of costumes complete another magnificent A Noise Within production design.

Lucy Houlihan is stage manager and Karin Naono is assistant stage manager. Carly DW Bones is intimacy coach. Miranda Johnson-Haddad is dramaturg.

Casting is by Victoria Hoffman. Michael Evans Lopez and Thony Mena understudy Molina and Valentin.

Every bit as powerful as it was when its author first penned it while in political exile from Argentina, A Noise Within’s Kiss Of The Spider Woman makes for live theater at its most heart-stopping and thought-provoking. It held me spellbound.

A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd, Pasadena.
www.ANoiseWithin.org

–Steven Stanley
April 1, 2023
Photos: Craig Schwartz

Tags: A Noise Within, Los Angeles Theater Review, Manuel Puig