KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN by MANUEL PUIG
The multi-layered, intensely compelling tale of love, betrayal and intrigue that launched the award-winning musical and film.
The theme of this seldom performed masterwork is the subtle interplay in all lives of the erotic and the political.
Prisoners, Luis Molina and Valentín Arregui, share a cell in a Buenos Aires prison. The story takes place between September 9, 1975 and October 8, 1975.
Molina, a transgender woman, is in jail for "corruption of a minor", while Valentín is a political prisoner who is part of a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the government. The two characters, seemingly opposites in every way,form an intimate bond in their cell, and their relationship changes both of them in profound ways.
Molina, the window dresser, knows only the erotic; Valentin, the radical, has repressed the erotic out of a distorted sense of political duty.The overly close confines bring the men together, having them meet, briefly merge and then wind up changing places.
‘Sometimes they talk all night long. In the still darkness of their cell Molina re-weaves the glittering and fragile stories of the films he loves, and the cynical Valentin listens.Valentin believes in the just cause which makes all suffering bearable; Molina believes in the magic of love which makes all else endurable. Each has always been alone, and always – especially now – in danger of betrayal. But in cell 7 each surrenders to the other something of himself that he has never surrendered before.’