Kiss of the Spiderwoman
Old Fire Station Theatre, 25-29.11.03

Cookie Jar’s production of this play about a communist revolutionary and a gay man sharing a prison cell sparkles. The acting in this two-hander is polished, intelligent and witty: the production correspondingly professional.

The constraints of the piece are considerable. It is a bold director who takes on the challenge of making visually interesting the prowlings of two unhappy men around their blank prison cell. This production, however, achieves a delicate balance between dramatisation and sensory deprivation. The stage presence of the two leading men is such that the audience remains gripped through long silences and periods of contemplation, and feels for them in their moments of embarrassment and shame.

The play is an understated work. Its power does not lie in its emotiveness or its horror, though both are present insofar as they must be when two persecuted men are thrown together. Rather, this is a portrayal of stoicism, affection and tension, all tinged with the desperation that lurks in every moment - the cooking of tea on a gas camping stove, the production of a rare slice of madeira cake, the shadows cast by the light outside the cell door.

The sum total is an expertly executed depiction of two complicated, ambivalent and quite different characters as they find in each other solace, rest and a way to cope. Beautiful theatre.

Andy Davies and Munzar Sharif, 26.11.03