KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN. To 1 November.
Keswick
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN
by Manuel Puig translated by Allan Baker
Theatre By The Lake In rep to 1 November 2003
Mon-Sat 8.15pm Mat 25 September 2.15pm
Runs 2hr 20 min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden, 30 July
Sympathetic direction and a strong performance mark out this revival of a prison play about sexual and political liberation.Manuel Puig's drama closets two contrasting types in forced togetherness. Whether Molina's sexuality or some other offence has put him in this South American jail, he's treated more leniently allowed visits and food-parcels - than political prisoner Valentin.
The men's relationship grows increasingly complex. Puig holds back till the interval on Molina's covert motive his overt one culminates in the play's shared-bed sex scene, announced with tactfully moody shadows by Jo Dawson's lighting.
But Spider Woman's interest lies in two sorts of suspense the horror-film story Molina rations out in episodes to his young cellmate, and the uncertainty of Molina's motivation. However keen he is to gain Valentin's confidence, it's hard to avoid the sense of genuine care as he helps his companion morally and physically through sickness and distress.
The distress is very apparent in Dennis Herdman's performance, which is often psychologically true. His guilt over longing for a bourgeois girl rather than his female comrade in the struggle, or the moment's lashing out against Molina's claustrophobic attentions, hit home.
Unlike Valentin's political side, where Herdman relies on technique, following the lines' most immediate mood too consistently. What would this Valentin have been doing for the revolution? Most likely, watching from the sidelines, keen to be involved.
There's a subtle, detailed performance from David Tarkenter - after an uneasy opening when he seemed determined to put all his camp credentials on instantaneous display, it becomes deeply-felt and reactively expressive. Watchful, probing or ever-busy to cover embarrassment, Tarkenter's Molina is someone who, put on the spot, often couldn't identify a single, or essential, motive.
If he is the horror-genre's Spider Woman, his own personality's as entangled in the web as his fellow prisoner's.
The intensity's increased by the receding perspective of designer Elizabeh Wright's set, with its patchwork metal-bar cage (more confining-seeming than a realistic set) above and around the prisoners. Ian Forrest's production moves the action smoothly with aptly varying pace, sudden eruptions of light and sound whenever Molina is taken out further accentuating the fundamental claustrophobia of the jail and the play's central relationship.
Valentin: Dennis Herdman
Warden: Harry Miller
Molina: David Tarkenter
Guard: Adam Waddington
Director: Ian Forrest
Designer: Elizabeth Wright
Lighting: Jo Dawson
Sound: Paul Bunn
2003-07-31 16:14:18