Kiss of the Spider Woman (play)

The 1983 stage play "Kiss of the Spider Woman" is an adaptation of Manuel Puig's same title novel by the author himself.

Novelist, screenwriter and playwright Manuel Puig wrote two plays while living in exile. The first was a dramatised version of his 1976 novel "El beso de la mujer araña" ("Kiss of the Spider Woman"), written in 1983 and first staged in London in 1985 at the Bush Theatre, in an English language version by translator Allan Baker, starring Mark Rylance and Simon Callow.

Baker's version was revived in April 2007 at the Donmar Warehouse with Rupert Evans as Valentin and Will Keen as Molina. [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article1707326.ece]

Set in a cell at the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires in 1976, it shows the developing relationship of a political activist Valentin Arregui Paz and his cellmate Luis Alberto Molina, a homosexual who has apparently been 'planted' to sniff out the secrets of Valentin's Marxist group.

The novel was also adapted by Leonard Schrader for a 1985 film version directed by Hector Babenco, and in 1993 as a Broadway stage musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb.

Puig's second play was "El misterio del ramode de rosas" ("Mystery of the Rose Bouquet") also translated by Baker and first produced in 1987.