The Kiss of the Spider Woman

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

For one amazing intense knock out performance, Steven Tangedal unfolds Manuel Puig’s The Kiss of a Spider Woman at the Phoenix Theatre with cunning deliberate subtle manipulation.

CJ Hosier and Mark Pergola star in The Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Weaving a web as subtle as a ham sandwich in a synagogue. So intricately and delicately designed, the web goes unnoticed, as Molina plays with Valentin in a small cell at the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires.

A political prisoner for his blatant Marxist stance, Valentin (Mark Pergola), struggles to hide his nervousness being in such close quarters with a restrained gay queen by hiding his face in books, insisting he has to study. He doesn’t always want to hear the detailed exploits of the movie about the panther woman from Molina, and yet he is captivated by the intriguing details Molina loses himself in.

The breath-taking Molina comes brilliantly to life by CJ Hosier, who after the performance Friday night readily admitted this is the most challenging role that has ever grabbed hold of him. As the White Rabbit disappears down the Rabbit Hole, so Hosier disappears under the persona of Molina. Every breath, every move, every calculated process is exquisitely detailed throughout Hosier’s entire being into the colorful Molina.

Imprisoned for making sexual advances to a young boy, Molina has been offered special gifts of food supposedly from his mother by the prison authorities to spy on Valentin, to worm vital information out of him concerning his contacts. Tight-lipped, on guard, Valentin isn’t about to give any information to anyone. He’s too smart, too cagey for that. What he doesn’t count on is the subtle manipulative powers a spider in her web controls.

Surrounding his bunk on the walls are movie star photos. Before going to sleep at night, Molina touches some of them gently with endearing affection. During the day to while away the hours he escapes into the movie world of Aurora, a B-movie star in the 40s who once played the ominous Spider Woman. For Valentin, the movie dreams keeps Molina at bay and though he fights against the storytelling, he is also caught up in the details totally unaware the strands the spider web have already begun to weave toward him.

Time after time, Molina throws carefully controlled curve balls each one attached to single almost invisible strand of web. He flaunts “There’s nothing better then a good woman. That’s why I want to be one.” And “If all men were like women, there would be no torturers.” Valentia talks about his girlfriend, lies, admits it, succumbing to the truth. When he becomes violently ill from bad food, he fights Molina’s undaunted attention. No way will he go to the infirmary. They will do anything to get information out of him, and he under no circumstances will put up with that, so naively unaware that is exactly what is happening to him. Valentin cracks under tormented anger. Molina pouts, Valentin moves closer, Molina pulls away. Valentin thinks he has the power, all the while the patient spider lies in wait.

The moves are subtle, yet jarring, seemingly unconnected, yet highly calculated and the dance of power and submission take Molina and Valentin into complicated areas while Molina and Valentin carry Hosier and Pergola into new heights of artistic levels.

On a set that nearly smells of a South American prison, Hosier and Pergola pile opposing emotions onto the set. Molina consistently tells Valentin he doesn’t want any information from him. What if they interrogate him? He’d have to tell. Almost believable. Almost trustworthy. Until Valentin gives way and into Molina’s emotional nest. He’s safe. He thinks.

With a lighting design by Jeremy Boik that screams out the prattled emotions in hushed whispers of a spider web, The Kiss of the Spider Woman is one of Tangedal’s finest piece of work. Because of the intricate emotional details flying across Molina’s brow, the show plays extremely well on the small stage. Hosier gives wary unnerving depth to the carefully chiseled portrait of a window dresser lost in the world of B movies. It’s a character study in-depth. It’s a relationship romp of complexities. It’s a spider patiently calculating its prey while subtly playing tidily winks with a myriad of bombarding emotions. It’s awesome, captivating, splendid.

Miss this one, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.