Kiss of the Spider Woman and Two Other Plays by Manuel Puig

Kiss of the Spider Woman and Two Other Plays Reviews

• 
  Angelina

  I read only Kiss of the Spider Woman. I think it will be more impressive on stage.
• 
  Karen

  What a sad and beautiful play! I think Puig's novel might work better for me than his dramatization of his novel, because I’m more of a fiction reader.
• 
  Dominic Ceja

  “When you come to bed, afterwards…I hope I’ll never wake up anymore once I’ve fallen asleep. I’d be sorry for my mother, sure, because she’d be on her own…but if it was just me, then I wouldn’t want to wake ever again. And this isn’t just some half-baked notion that I’ve just dreamed up either, no, it’s the honest truth…”
  
  That quote alone deserves five stars. I loved Kiss of The Spider Woman so much. Puig wrote the tension between Molina and Valentin so beautifully, I couldn’t stop reading. And the way he discussed gender identity is so cool to me, considering the time in which it was written. I understand fully why this is considered a seminal piece in queer literature now!
• 
  Akilah

  I assigned Kiss of the Spider Woman without having read it because it will be playing at the local playhouse, so I needed to remedy that before, you know, my students read it. So, that's the only play I read in this collection.
  
  The beginning was slow for me with all the talk about the movie I have never seen, but I did like that it was layered with meaning. Once the dramatic irony kicks into play--predictably, one could say--the stakes become higher and the play that much more interesting. Heartbreaking ending (that I loved, ha) but it really couldn't have gone any other way.
• 
  Lisa

  With small casts and simple sets/settings Puig is able to evoke a lot of emotion. These all involve very complicated characters discussing important topics of identity, rights, and compassion. I will say that I think the novel version of the title play was more interesting than this form.
• 
  Andrea

  Mehhh. A gay pedophile in prison seduces another inmate, a war resistor, by telling him about films he’s seen. ~300 pages of torture.
• 
  Kristy

  I really liked all three of these plays -- Puig has a way with small casts and simple sets that translates into complicated characters and very moving stories. I'm really interested to read his novel version of the title play (the novel was written first) to see how they compare. Then I could watch the movie version and then see the Tony award winning musical.