Musical Lyrical Lingo
We're Musical Lyrical Lingo!
Join Tim and Lj who delve deep into the wonderful world of musical theatre and more importantly the lessons they have learned from different musicals.
Join them as they explore some of the greatest musicals ever created, from the classics to the new and exciting shows that continue to teach us something new.
So whether you're a seasoned fan of the stage or a newcomer, this podcast is for you.
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Musical Lyrical Lingo
Kiss of the spider woman. Cellblock Fantasies and Fedoras.
What happens when fantasy becomes your only means of survival? This week, we dive deep into Kiss of the Spider Woman, the powerful 1992 Tony Award-winning musical that remains one of Broadway's most underappreciated masterpieces.
Set in an Argentinian prison during the military dictatorship, this Kander and Ebb musical (with book by Terrence McNally) tells the story of two cellmates who couldn't be more different. Molina, a window dresser imprisoned for his sexuality, escapes the harsh reality through elaborate fantasies of films starring his idol Aurora. His cellmate Valentin, a political revolutionary tortured for information, initially rejects these fantasies but gradually forms a profound connection with Molina that transforms them both.
We explore how the musical uses the character of Aurora/Spider Woman (originally played by Broadway legend Chita Rivera at age 60) to represent both escape and death - a stunning duality that makes this character so fascinating. The show's brilliant score merges Latin rhythms with classic Broadway style in numbers like "Where You Are," "Give Me Love," and the haunting title song.
With Jennifer Lopez starring in an upcoming film adaptation directed by Bill Condon (Chicago, Dreamgirls) set to release this October, there's never been a better time to discover or rediscover this musical. We discuss how the film appears to focus more on the fantasy sequences than the gritty prison reality, and what that might mean for the storytelling.
What truly makes Kiss of the Spider Woman remarkable is its exploration of how marginalized people create survival mechanisms through art and fantasy - demonstrating that imagination isn't merely escape but a profound act of resistance. Have you experienced this powerful musical? Let us know your thoughts and whether you're excited for the film adaptation!
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Hello and welcome to Musical Lyrical Lingo. We're your hosts, Tim.
Lj:And LJ. Today and every week we will be discussing musicals, but specifically what they taught us.
Tim:Well, hello, hello, hello. Wasn't last week's episode. Just wonderfully fun.
Lj:Wonderfully fun.
Tim:I I've I've lived off that for a whole week.
Lj:Yeah, it was good. Some really good choices there.
Tim:And you know what? You see, when you put all of those like end of act ones that we were talking about last week onto a playlist?
Lj:Wow. Yeah.
Tim:That's that's a hot playlist.
Lj:Yeah. People will be downloading that left, right, and centre.
Tim:Oh wow, absolutely.
Lj:We'll go viral.
Tim:Have we not already?
Lj:Almost.
Tim:We will be fine eventually, right?
Lj:Yes. Yes.
Tim:Anyway, how are you?
Lj:We're we're all great. We're all great. Very excited about what uh theatre news you're going to share with us this week.
Tim:Well, it's very hard after last week because it was like uh stop the presses. Every day was a different announcement of casting and shows and all the rest of it. Um I thought uh this week I would share two um regional revivals. And it's not often we're talking about a revival in a regional theatre.
Lj:Yeah.
Tim:But two quite big regional revivals were announced uh a week or two ago. Uh a Little Night Music is going to have its revival uh Christmas this year. No, Christmas next year. Next year 2026 at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre from the 5th of December to the 30th of January. Um That's not one that you would have expected, is it? Also, in the very same Manchester Royal Exchange, they're also going to have a revival, regional revival of Fun Home.
Lj:Mm-hmm.
Tim:Yeah.
Lj:They were announced like at the same time.
Tim:At the same time. Well the Manchester Uh Royal Exchange have announced their like bumper, I think is it like uh an anniversary like kind of uh program of theatre. Uh and both of those uh revivals were announced. Um and it's so Fun Home is going to be playing professionally up north for the very first time. Uh uh the 3rd of July to the 1st of August 2026.
Lj:So it's like another limited run?
Tim:Yeah, no, yeah, it's another limited run, but very exciting. Something else that's really exciting is uh one of my favourites that I've never seen live, and oh, I would love to see is Victoria Woods Acorn Antiques.
Lj:Yeah.
Tim:It's having a concert, and I think the proceeds of the concert are going to it's been split between two charities. I think it's like a charity kind of concert. Um again, Manchester. It's gonna be in Manchester from the 2nd of November to the 6th, sorry, the 2nd of November, and then it sold out so fast they had to bring in a second date. So it'll be going back on the 16th of November. That's right. And it's also coming to the Shaftsbury Theatre for one night on the 9th of November. But excitingly, it the cast includes Anna Jane Casey, who has just in the last number of weeks uh taken Belfast by storm in um NIOpera's production of Follies with our wonderful friend of the pod, Ali Harding, and Jennifer Renith, the fabulous um choreographer, and it was simply stunning.
Lj:And amazing.
Tim:It was simply stunning. So yeah, Anna Jane Casey is going to be involved, as is Rob Madge.
Lj:Yeah, yeah, and Grace Momat is going to be in it as well.
Tim:That's right, yeah, yeah. So exciting. I like Rob Madge and Acorn Antiques, like kind of just go together, don't they?
Lj:Yeah, and then on his socials, um, sorry, on their socials, um, they shared when they put on a production of Acorn Antiques in their carapal.
Tim:Yeah. And he has he's mentioned because I think I've heard a few but a few interviews from him where he actually mentioned Acorn Antics and how he loves that musical and I think it was a big part of his you know childhood and growing up and stuff. So it's really exciting that it's come full circle for him. I know it's exciting. That's it. Like I didn't want to like bore us with the theatrical news this week, especially after our bumper.
Lj:No, that that's great, but also did you hear that there are more solid rumours about death becomes her?
Tim:Yes, that's true. Having a West End um run. So slightly more chit-chat around that pen in your hand is making noise off your ring, just in case people are wondering what that more chit-chat around that.
Lj:And there has been an announcement of I was trying to think. And it's just proportions. Literally gone out of my head. So there was that, and then there was I think Beatle Gist as well has the same sort of rumor.
Tim:I think those were the two that were like, Yeah, this could actually be happening in London soon, at some point in the next year or two.
Lj:Yeah. Um, I know what it was. Jason Manford writing a musical. That's right, he is writing a musical with Gary Barlow.
Tim:Okay, so that gives me a bit more hope.
Lj:He's writing a musical with Gary Barlow, and it is the origin story of Hook, Captain Hook.
Tim:Oh, very good, right?
Lj:Okay. So I'm intrigued already.
Tim:The origin stories of Hook is Jason Manford gonna cast himself as Hook? Don't know. Oh, I hope not.
Lj:Don't know. He he has mentioned that he has previously played Hook. Oh for Christmas. Um, but I'm excited because I am a once upon a time fan. That's I 100% know that you don't definitely don't watch it.
Tim:Um I would watch it if I had more time, but I don't.
Lj:Okay.
Tim:Do you know what I mean? Like I know, like I know it's good, but I also know it was really long and there's loads of episodes.
Lj:It's amazing. I'm actually at the stage where I'm ready to re-watch it again. It's still there though, isn't it? Yeah. It's on Disney Plus.
Tim:Yeah.
Lj:But they do an origin story of Captain Hick.
Tim:Oh, okay.
Lj:And Captain Hick's not as bad as you think, and why?
Tim:So it'd be interesting to see if they follow that sort of all you need is to look at Wicked and realise that that is often the case. These although I do think Ursula was just plain rotten.
Lj:Somebody did say to me the other day, and was it my daughter or was it my um sister? They're one and the same, so it's sometimes hard to differentiate between who said what. What really did Ursula do? Was she really that bad?
Tim:She took her good she took Ariel's voice.
Lj:Well, this is what I said. She took her voice and then she, you know, tried to steal Eric. But she really out of all of them, she probably wasn't the worst.
Tim:You mentioned your sister there today. It was a very proud day for me.
Lj:Was it?
Tim:Because I got a message from my brother, it doesn't happen very often, but he actually texts me. That's not the that's not the inside news. But he sent me a screenshot of New York from Two Strangers, Carry a Cake across. Oh yeah. And he was he was like, Have you heard this? And I was like, I've heard this. And I was like, I talk about it on a on a weekly basis. I was like, Yes, of course I've heard of it. It's really good. It's from a musical. I was like, Yeah, is it by that guy who sang something about being found or something like that? And I was like, Yes, that's right. It was sung, it is sung by Sam Tully, who was Dear Evan Hansen, you will be found.
Lj:Do you know all of that is very good for your brother?
Tim:I but that's what I mean. I'm really proud. I was like, so I was like, Do I ask him the question or did I just take this as a win? But I did, I was brave, and I was like, Do you like it? Question mark. And I was like, Yeah, it was a good song.
Lj:Yeah.
Tim:I was like, Did you know it was from a musical? I saw it on TikTok.
Lj:I was gonna say it's kind of gone viral on TikTok where people are just sing like you know singing along to it.
Tim:Okay.
Lj:Um which is a f which is straight, it's a strange one.
Tim:I just and then you he sends me the TikTok video, but as you know, I'm still not on TikTok, so I can't watch them and I'm not joining TikTok. I'm not losing years of my life on that app. But yeah, no, but it was a proud day for me.
Lj:Oh, you're gonna be able to do that. I'm very proud of my brother.
Tim:You see, once upon a time he did do musical theatre and then he he he strayed.
Lj:He did. I think it was like all too much. It was like a bit like my dad. Yeah. It was just just bombarded him and then he went the opposite way.
Tim:He strayed, he strayed away from the past.
Lj:Maybe we'll get him back to him, just you know, start listening to the pod.
Tim:Well, I said to him, I was like, I think maybe listening to Le Pod's a bit extreme, a bit too much of an ask for him. But I did say you should listen to the rest of Two Strangers Carry a Cake. Because it is like the music is good. That's a wee musical for us to do uh eventually. Yes, maybe next season.
Lj:Maybe.
Tim:Okay. On to what we're doing today, which is a wee bit like not the norm. Not the norm. And I'm so delighted that we we plucked this one from thin air, uh, because I really enjoyed researching this musical. And actually, it's a musical I want to see now.
Lj:Yeah, so we are we're doing a musical called Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Tim:Yeah.
Lj:And when this episode airs, you'll only have to wait maybe a few weeks, and then you will see a movie musical of this starring Jennifer Lopez.
Tim:As the Spider Woman.
Lj:As this Aurora slash the Spider Woman. And she is already getting I think it was it in Cannes Festival, um, she's already getting like a critical acclaim, like that this was the role that she was born to play. Um, and she is they're already starting to depress at the minute, and she's saying things like Wicked is lovely, Wicked is great, but this is not Wicked, you know. And yeah, very excited. Now there's a bit of controversy with this, okay, with this m musical, um, and but it has been around. There has been big productions of it, yeah. There have been people big names involved in it. But like you, I really enjoyed listening to it.
Tim:Yeah, it's one of those ones for me that I always knew there was a musical called Kiss of a Spider Woman, but I and I've heard like obviously there is there is a number called The Kiss of a Spider Woman, and I've heard it, but I've never really looked into it, nor had any urges to look into it, but it's it sounds absolutely riveting for me anyway. I I'm like, I actually would like to see this this musical. So it's uh music by John Cander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, who in themselves are, you know, musical theatre royalty having you know written Cabaret in Chicago and the book is by Terrence McNally.
Lj:Yeah, who did Ragtime and the Filmonte.
Tim:Yeah, so like big big players in the world of musical theatre, it's maybe just one of their lesser showcased musicals, because I don't want to say lesser known, because I as you say I think it's known, but you just don't see it performed very much. However, I know Anna Jane Casey is doing a revival of it this year, isn't she?
Lj:She is, yeah. So as as you mentioned at the beginning of the pod, she she's currently or she's just finished um Follies in the Grand Opera House. Um, and she is going on a UK tour um in it's going to be Bristol and Southampton in 2026, and she will be playing Aurora and um Kiss of the Spider-Woman or Spider Woman, yeah. Um which is really again so strange that like it's now being chokiest everywhere.
Tim:Yeah, I know, absolutely, and as you said about the this movie adaptation coming up, the trailer looks good, and Jennifer Lopez does come across really flipping well in it. So I am looking forward to it. Are we going?
Lj:Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tim:Well, Kiss of the Spider Woman, it's based on a 1976 novel by Manuel Pwig.
Lj:Pwig?
Tim:Pwig, yeah. P-U-I-G. I also want to now read that novel.
Lj:Okay.
Tim:Yeah, I want to read the book. The plot is a gritty uh the plot is gritty real I can't talk anymore. Realism meets movie fantasy in a powerful and searching drama which explores limits of heroic seriousness and human liberation. It's set in Argentinian prison. Yep in the time of a military dictatorship. Uh Kiss of a Spider Woman features two very different men who find themselves sharing the same cell. One, Louis Molina, is ostentatiously gay, a window dresser by trade, uh determinedly frivolous. Uh Molina has never in his life, it seems, entertained a serious thought nor questioned for a moment the values of a society which has disregarded him as an outcast. Escapism has been his guiding principle through sex and cinema in uh the outside world, now through his thoughts of the favourite movies uh whose plots he exhaustively retells to his cellmate here. And that's where the Spider-Man comes in because she's involved in these cinematic like movies that he retells in his mind. Um his tastes run to the outlandish, melodramatic, and the extravagantly romantic, his exotic imaginations knowing no bounds. Now, on the other side of it, his cellmate he regales could hardly be more different. So Valentine has been jailed for revolutionary activities against the government. He is a heroic ideal idealist, uh prepared to die for his beliefs, and actually at the beginning of the musical, he experiences severe torture by the authorities and he w he holds out and withholds any information and just puts up with it. He, however, has uh much to learn from Melina as his uh cellmate, as uh Louis Molina, a deeper character than he first appeared, does from Learning from Valentine. And it's nice to hear, because obviously I've only listened to the the show, how little by little as the days go by they do like mutually come to understand each other and also discover things about themselves from each other. It's nice. It's it's really it seems quite deep, yes, but it sounds really interesting.
Lj:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm really intrigued um by the movie. Um so the 2025 film is as we said star starring Jennifer Lopez. It is directed by Bill Um is it Condon? Is that how you say his name? He did Chicago, Dream Girls, and Beauty and the Beast. So he's directed a number of movie musicals. This um Melina has these fantasies, and like as in retails, the films that he went to see. Um, so it's what I can get from the trailer is that it's going to be very Chicago-like, and that is almost how they stage it too, is where Melina starts and then Aurora slash um Spider Woman takes over the singing.
Tim:Um it interesting, I think the film differs slightly from the stage version in that it cuts most uh almost every song set in reality, so that's set in the prison where Melina and Valentine are held, and it it only uh keeps the ones set in these fantasies that Melina comes up with, so therefore uh you maybe don't get the grittiness of the prison life in Argentina, but you get the techno-colored lavishness and beauty of those classic MGM like musical films.
Lj:Yeah, yeah. Um, so there there's been a number of productions. This is a 1992 musical, and it started in uh Toronto, directed by Harold Prince. So again, lots of big names attached attached to this. Yeah. Um 1992 to 93 went on the West End, and then Broadway in '93. It did win, was it seven Tony's, but it won what three of the Tony's were best musical, best book, and best um score.
Tim:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lj:And then there was a 1996 tour.
Tim:And uh and Tony Awards for all three principals in the cast. So the two prisoners and then the Spider-Woman, Cheetah Rivera.
Lj:Um it went was in Australia in 2010 and also Brazil in um year 2000. And it will obviously mention about the 2026 revival. So yes, Cheetah Rivera. This is what some people say her best role. And she was about 60 whenever she was playing this.
Tim:Yeah, and interestingly, I always in my head, because obviously Cheeta Rivera is like musical theatre, like particularly American musical theatre, royalty, like oh my goodness, roll the red carpet out and bow down to this absolute legend. I always thought she was linked to this show right from the beginning. But she wasn't, um, because it was unleashed upon the world actually in State University in New York. Um, it was a workshop presentation, but directed by such a high caliber director, Harold Prince, and choreographed by Susan Strowman. Um, and at that time, Frank Rich from the New York Times came to review it, and it in a way it was his review that meant it didn't nothing kind of happen with it until much later. Well, two years later in 1992. But he had reviewed it in the State University and slated it, and did quote at the time that the title role needed a dazzling musical comedy presence of a Cheetah Rivera sort who has always ignited the flashy candor and ebb songs. So then fast forward to 1992, it was great that they had got her. And it maybe that's what was missing, and she was the jewel in the crown to you know to make it as successful, and it like it it proved successful. It ran for 390 performances at the Shaftsbury Theatre in in London, and then 904 performances in the Broadhurst Theatre in Broadway in 1993.
Lj:Yeah.
Tim:So, you know, and obviously Cheetah Rivera, uh Brent Carver, and Anthony Trevello. Trevello, yeah. They reprise their roles in both the West End and Broadway.
unknown:Yeah.
Lj:Um, and there's a great Tony's um you know they did a product or a performance at the Tony's. So also on YouTube is the full version, the full uh West End version. What? Mm-hmm. Never there is, and also there's a documentary.
Tim:Shh, no. Well, that's my weekend sorted.
Lj:There's no, it's only 13 minutes. Um there's uh it's called Cheetah Rivera in Case of a Spider Woman. Okay, but it talks with Fred, it talks with Harold Prince. Nice. Um, they mention McNally in it, um, and they also mention how they spoke to um Manuel Pwig and how he was able to give them such an insight into where basically they say he is Marina.
Tim:Okay.
Lj:And yes, that first version was terrible. And they they they do mention that. Um originally they went more with like a Rita Hayworth type character.
unknown:Okay.
Lj:Um, but it didn't work, so they then reimagined it that it is a hundred percent set in the prison.
Tim:Okay.
Lj:A lot more grittier, um, and that Aurora is all in Melina's head. Okay. Um but Pwig died before he was able to see the final version, and you can tell in the doc ye that they're like, we're just gutted he didn't get to see Cheetah and didn't get to see what he needed, but he was so kind and understanding and was like, Do you know what you will get there? And there's elements of this that I like and all that. So it's it's a lovely documentary. Um, and what they say is we needed to do it wrong in order to get it right.
Tim:Yeah, which is often the way for most things, isn't it? Like you learn from your mistakes the most.
Lj:So um one thing, just talking about McNally, I came across something that he said about theatre, and I thought it was beautiful. McNally was a real advocate for using theatre to to create a community and also help bridge rifts, which is what this musical does too. And he says, I think theatre teaches us who we are, what our society is, where we are going. I don't think theatre can solve the problems of society, nor should it be expected to. Plays don't do that, people do.
Tim:Oh, nice.
Lj:But plays can provide a forum for the ideas and feelings that can lead a society to decide to heal and change itself. And I love that somebody so passionate about theatre was going, you can't put all the emphasis on this play is going to change the world.
Tim:Yeah.
Lj:Because that doesn't happen, but people can have a reaction to it and they change it.
Tim:Yeah. And I think that's why this like I do I kind of think the depth of this is why it's not done as often, or it's not in the public eye as much as it it probably should be. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like I do know that like sometimes sometimes it's too too smart or too deep for audiences. Do you know what I mean?
Lj:This is like how deep cabaret is whenever you actually go and see it and you realise that it's not all show busy. And this is what Chicago could be if it wasn't all glitz and glam.
Tim:Yeah, oh god, yeah, that's a really good way of putting that.
Lj:Yeah.
Tim:And what this is just missing are some of those more well-known or hit Candreneb songs. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But the music in this is be like it's beautiful. Some of the ballads are some of the best like musical theatre ballads I've heard, and there's some great, like you know, routine numbers, and it's quite interesting. I don't know if they changed the music after the first go to then having uh Cheetah on board, but she obviously was known for her dancing abilities, and there's especially in like the opening number, and there's a few other numbers where there's extended periods of instrumental, and I'm like, was that put in for Cheetah to do Cheetah and like give like a fabulous like dance solo lent more into the Latin American side of it.
Lj:So they did, yeah, 100%. The I mentioned at the beginning there's a bit of controversy, and the controversy is that Molina is in prison and what Molina is in prison for.
Tim:Yes.
Lj:So they do change that in the film as far as I'm aware. So he is serving a th he's in his third year of an eight-year prison sentence for corrupting a minor.
Tim:Yeah.
Lj:So they've they've removed that bit, I think. I think it's now just for being LGBT. I think that's that's what they've they've gone for. Um and I don't know if by keeping it in, does it does it do you know sometimes when characters in musical theatre are presented to you and they're not all good because not everybody is all good, yeah. Is that where you kind of are toying with do I feel sorry for this person or not?
Tim:Yeah, I like yes, because it was that was one of the the areas where because when you listen to it, like you you do like that character, you like him, uh, and you like how he helps Valen. But it's hard to like a character when you know they're in prison for that reason. So I like that they've changed that because I think it allow it will allow audiences to access that character more than they would allow themselves to. Do you know what I mean? Like, because I kind of went, oh, why is he in prison? You know, when I was reading up on the plot, I was like, why is he in prison for that? Yeah, you know, like because that immediately puts you off him, you know. You the reason for Val and Tina being in prison doesn't immediately make you go, oh well we can't like that character. Yeah. Whereas Melina's does, you're like, but then you you listen to you know, you listen to his hims his numbers and you read into what he does for everyone else in that, you know. And I just like, oh, it's a shame that you don't allow yourself to like him for that reason. So it's nice, actually, I I like they've changed that.
Lj:And I think a whole thing about this musical is it's the relationship that uh how they develop that trusting relationship and then actually there is love there.
Tim:Yeah, yeah.
Lj:So um yeah, a lot of shall we move on to musical lyrical ingos?
Tim:I think so. I now what I'll say is when I listened to it, it was hard to it was hard to pick out lyrically musical lyrical ingos because I understood everything exactly but it was what I got from the song. It seems sometimes even nicer than 100%.
Lj:So um obviously I learned a little bit more about um the making of the musical um that Melina you know had um was sort of based on or influenced by the writer. But then I was like, what was happening in 1960s Argentina? So there was a is that this right, Aaron? There was a military coup in Argentina, and is this okay? So this is is this just people were feeling uneasy with the state of the country, or was this just Karl Marx's influence? What was sort of happening?
unknown:Um my understanding was wasn't that one that led to democracy? Okay, like 8283. Okay. Um I can't remember.
Lj:Um So pretty much this is a similar time to Evita.
unknown:The dirty war?
Lj:Yeah, okay. So this is where the the prisoners are put in jail for having different ideas, different voice, and political prisoners. Political prisoners, but then the guards are able to do whatever they whatever they want in order to get the information from them.
Tim:Okay, yeah, so um see that's why Aaron is here for this episode because I'm going back to Spelling Bee.
Lj:I'm not that smart.
Tim:People have been telling me that for years.
Lj:Um, anything you learned?
Tim:Yeah, well, I it taught me about that the power of actual fantasy and storytelling as an escape from, as you've just talked about, like oppression, and also as like a means for survival. And I love uh uh Aurora the Spider-Woman, who we now know is like most of the time it's a fantasy, as Candor said about the show. You spend half of the evening inside somebody else's fantasy, it's not reality. But she uh even references this idea of you know fantasy as an escape in the song Where You Are. She sings when you feel you've gone to hell in a handbasket and the world in which you dwell is no paradise. I have some counsel I can give you. I'm so glad to share this good advice. You've got to learn how to not be where you are. The more you face reality, the more you scar. So close your eyes and you'll become a movie star. Why must we stay where we are?
Lj:Oh my goodness, absolutely love that. And I've adopted this. Saying from Aaron, that song is an earworm a hundred percent it gets stuck in your ear and your singer. Literally, as you were saying the lyrics there, I was like doing her movies.
Tim:You were, you absolutely were.
Lj:I love it. But this song is so strange, Timothy. As I was listening to this musical, I was like, Oh, I wonder, does Ian know this musical and has he listened to this? And does he like it? Because I feel like your dad would love this.
Tim:He probably would, yeah.
Lj:And that song in particular.
Tim:Why do you think say that?
Lj:Then maybe because I I do associate like Chicago with your dad.
Tim:Because that's what he would have done with you and singing it. Yeah.
Lj:So maybe there's that, but I'm like, it has that. I just think your dad would appreciate the music.
Tim:Yeah. I do think dad likes Candorinette.
Lj:Yeah, so maybe that's that's what I'm thinking. Also, I think this song, I've always known this song, but didn't know it came from this song. Oh really? No.
Tim:Like so many of these numbers I had never heard of before, and I went, that's an amazing number.
Lj:Definitely heard this.
Tim:Wow.
Lj:Definitely I've heard this.
Tim:But it just like highlights how imagination embodied by Melina's stories of glamorous movies, and it serves as a vital tool for an escape, isn't the harsh reality that they're in, you know, and provides hope.
Lj:Yeah, this that's that's brilliant. So this musical, I know this musical starts and it's Aurora. Yeah, she is introducing you to the prisoners and she's a prisoner here for such and such and such and such prisoner, and you're hearing, as you've said, the screams of people being tortured, and you're already then slowly wondering what's going on, who's this person that's introducing it. Um but it's because it's this fantasy, it's and it's how he I don't hear anything out there, and he openly says that to Fallantine, I don't hear those tortures because I'm in my head and I am listening to the latest um you know, song film. Um and so many people can do that. There's loads of people that can't block stuff out. No, but there's some people that that is a major coping um mechanism, and wow, that's probably why he is is surviving, but probably many people didn't think he would survive that type of prison.
Tim:That's it. What did you learn?
Lj:Um, what is a spider-woman?
Tim:Oh, I never even thought to ask that question.
Lj:Well, originally you do get, and I think this is where EP would got a bit excited, you do get the comic book.
Tim:Yeah, that's why you're here, isn't it? That's the honesty. You thought we were talking about a Marvel musical or something tonight.
unknown:Very, very shocked once you started talking.
Tim:Oh, I'm so sorry.
Lj:Um, because um EP's favorite character is Spider-Man. Oh, okay, yeah. Fair.
unknown:Yeah.
Tim:Have you dressed up as them and all? Yeah, I'm just at Halloween.
Lj:Friday nights!
Tim:Thank goodness I call around Thursday.
Lj:Um so yeah, a a Spider Woman is a powerful, wise, and often nurturing um teacher of essential skills, such as in communities like um uh baking, cooking, and sewing, things like that.
Tim:Yeah. Isn't it funny though? Because like in my head, when you hear Spider-Woman, and my understanding before I came to this musical was that Spider Woman would have been like this character that was the opposite of those things, like something deadly, something really dangerous, something that yeah, like a black widow to stay away from. And yet it's like the complete opposite.
Lj:But the thing is, it's both, and this is where I think this musical's super clever. So Aurora is the actress who plays all these different roles in the films that he loves, and he then becomes obsessed, or he became obsessed with one film in particular where she plays the Spider Woman. Um, and this is in Navajo. Maybe did not say that right mythology. A spider woman is a helper.
unknown:Navajo.
Lj:There we go. Navajo.
Tim:Like there must be endless clangers.
Lj:Like spelling bee must have been hilarious. Um a helper, protector, but can also be menacing for misbehaving children. Okay. And then for H O P I is that Hoppe? Hoppeye? Yeah, Hoppeye people. It's known as the Spider Grandmother, and it is thought that they are the ones who create the world into existence and they live lead people into a spiritual world through all these webs of whatever you have to go through in life in order to then get to the end. So there are those where it's a nurturing but also can turn if you need.
Tim:It very much explores the complexities of identity and human and the human capacity for connection and resistance in even the most brutal of circumstances. You know, how like where are we we where are we connection here? Like, you know, us. But like disp and in the show, despite despite the the two guys' vastly different backgrounds, an initial antagonism between Yeah, exactly, and the peapot I laughed at. But I need to use a pot. What do I do if I need to use a pot? Well, you can use a pot for that, you know, you can cross the line for that reason. Um, but that this friendship like demonstrates like this human capacity to find connection, developing deeper and meaningful relationships, even in like extreme isolation and suffering, like prison in Argentina at this time sounded horrendous, rough, like yeah, yeah.
Lj:Um, also, I sort of learnt about different people's version of happiness and what people different people will do for one another, yeah. Um, and that's kind of displayed in the different levels of uh relationships that go on. So obviously Molina has a love for Aurora in a different way that his love is for his mother, yeah. And then we have Valentina's in love with Marta, yeah, but she is has turned on him, like turned away from him because um he's in prison and um because of his ideas and things like that, but there's still a connection of love there, and and Lelina says a line where it's funny, um it's funny how happiness like tricks you because you in the moment of happiness you think you're never going to be unhappy again. Yeah.
Tim:Um and oh there's some really powerful lines and I can just not so powerful and I'm probably putting myself out here out there now to be absolutely ridiculed for being really stupid. Okay. I'm almost afraid to share this, but I have to. Um I learned that rum comes from cane.
Lj:Sugar.
Tim:Yeah.
Lj:Okay, well done.
Tim:I have no idea why like I mean to be honest, I never it's never something that I've thought about. Where does rum come from? But in Over the Wall, they sing about, you know, over like getting over the walls of the prison and escaping. They sing there is rum from the cane fields over the wall. There's rum from the cane fields in round bulging bottles, it stings when you swallow over the wall. So that idea for the process of making rum starts from harvesting sugar cane.
Lj:That's why it's so sweet.
Tim:Duh. But genuinely, hadn't it cut?
Lj:Yeah, there you go. I don't know.
Tim:There we go. That lyric has taught me about and a bit and the thing for many years I would have drank rum and coke.
Lj:Yeah, and you didn't know that it came from sugarcane?
Tim:Duh. I'm so sorry. No. Don't judge me.
Lj:No, not at all. Not at all.
Tim:Um Blue Bloods, the song Blue Bloods. Yeah. Uh and we have heard like Blue Blood before in another musical, but I couldn't Oh no, not in another musical. I can't think maybe we have, but I just I thought we had mentioned it, but maybe we hadn't. Um Melina sings, Do you know why they call royalty blue bloods? Um they call royalty blue bloods because their skin is so thin that their veins show through blue. I looked it up. That's true.
Lj:I know. I know.
Tim:So there we go. Dressing them up, I love because it's Melina in his like uh window dresser stage, and he's like regaling, you know, his job when he was able when he was free.
Lj:And we should say that the songs aren't very long.
Tim:Yeah.
Lj:So maybe like some songs like 40 seconds and then another's a minute and like two minutes. So they kind of do help you with the story of it.
Tim:Do you know where I got through this um cast recording?
Lj:Where?
Tim:On the treadmill in the gym.
Lj:I know. Well, you went from spelling bee, cross trainer, spelling bee, runner, treadmill.
Tim:Right. Yeah, I know. There was one number in particular that was very helpful. I almost was like choreographing a routine on the treadmill as I was doing it. I was like, this is fabulous. I actually think there was my gate definitely changed.
Lj:Oh, okay.
Tim:I did start getting a few we looks. I think it was because I was doing like a stepball change.
Lj:A shimmer turmeric.
Tim:I was definitely stepball changing on the treadmill, but we'll get to that. But anyway, in dressing them up, he sings, for example, once I asked for a Balenciaga scarf to stuff in the mannequins purse. I had no idea what a Balenciaga was.
Lj:Oh, okay. Do you know what a Balenciaga is? Yeah, it's very famous.
Tim:Luxurious. It's luxurious, very luxurious, high fashioned French uh high quality materials. Um I also did look up on average how much uh Balencia silk scarf. But she got away shock? At the low end, at the low end, $180.
Lj:$180.
Tim:On the high end, for the highest priced version of this item, $485. Why would you bother for a scarf? Can you tell me?
Lj:And the scarf the scarfs are very symbolic and the um the red and everything that he sort of like dresses up in. Yeah. You know, a silk scarf is almost central. Uh-huh. You know, and then whenever he is leaving the prison, uh-huh, he he ties that beautifully around. So have you watched it?
Tim:Oh god, I need I didn't realise there was a oh right, I'm watching it. Um where you are, uh they sing you've got oh, this is uh Aurora again. You've got to learn how to not do what you've done. The pist oh no, I don't think it is her singing, actually. The pistol shot can't kill you if you unload the gun. So build a palace where you're the Shah and we'll embrace in that Shangri-La. So Shah, I didn't know it's a title for a former monarch, uh a royalty title meaning king.
Lj:Yeah.
Tim:And Shangri-La is a fictional, mystical Himalayan utopia described in James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon. It's synonymous with any beautiful faraway place that offers peace and paradise.
Lj:Yeah. They mentioned that in Aladdin though, don't they? And like, he's a king, the czar, the czar.
Tim:Oh, there we go.
Lj:Yeah.
Tim:Oh, is it Shah rather than Shah?
Lj:No, what's the last play to say?
Tim:S-H-A-H.
Lj:I just whenever I seen that, I just thought, oh, well, that I knew somebody of royalty, so I couldn't be wrong. I could be wrong.
Tim:Do you have any other musical label?
Lj:No, that was kind of all of my learning. I did, however, learn that Donna Murphy played The Spider Woman. And she's in Gilded Age. I mean, there's another week where we're mentioning her. And this production um was Vanessa Williams' debut.
Tim:Oh, amazing.
Lj:25 years ago. 18th of March. And did she play the Spider Woman? She played the Spider Woman on her birthday.
Tim:What great Spider Woman though?
Lj:Yeah, so like those two, Cheetah, um, actually uh pretty much uh anybody that's played it has been amazing.
Tim:What Paddy Le Pone could play it, could be a Spider-Woman. Yeah, could be no, I think she's got it.
Lj:Yeah, she could. She could. I love the white fedora top tails or white tails, and then you can see in the trailer that there's like a slight modern twist to that that J-Lo's doing.
Tim:So is that the give me love? Give me love, give me love. No, that's the where you are. Oh, okay.
Lj:And she's standing smoking. This is even in the Tony production. He starts off, um, and you can see the the the um jail. Okay, and then she starts it's clas it's I am watching it.
Tim:I am watching classy. Yeah, I will be watching it because I keep have come become a bit obsessed. Like I'm like, I want to see the musical, I want to read the book, like it's sounds really interesting to me. Um, your standard of ovations?
Lj:Okay, so I like I do miracles, which is the last number.
Tim:Okay, yeah.
Lj:Um and it's it's sad, it is sad, but this is kind of like happy as well, you know. It's a it's a weird, it's it's a weird one, but I think that's lovely. I do like I do um miracles. Um no, sorry, only in the movies is the last song. Um, and then I love where you are.
Tim:I love give me love, give me love, give me love, love, love. That was the one that I was stepping to on the treadmill. I was like, this is a class number. I agree with you, where you are. I enjoy. I also like uh kiss of the spot. Oh, a man. Um, and actually the 1992 cast recording is sublime. Yeah. I said my word. I don't think I've said my word in nearly a year. Wow because I was you said it enough. In the first the first season, I've never said it again since. Yeah, I I yeah, as I said, completely obsessed with it now.
Lj:Yeah, no, so I think I think it's like the first, second week in October. Um so yeah.
Tim:As you kind of said, it was it had a very Latin kind of feel, lovely Latin dancing. Cheetah was known for her dancing. So, or what would Patty do? Is a bit of a dance thing. But we're gonna bring it up tempoe, um more bubblegummy. Okay. Here's your choices. Would you rather leap into a high energy into the high energy chaos of a gelical ball from cats? Or would you keep up with the unstoppable beat of you can't stop the beat from hairspray?
Lj:You can't stop. Yeah, I do that. Jelical balls. I don't think I can get the liquor on in front of the bike.
Tim:I thought you were gonna say can't get the leg up there. I'm just ballet days are done, are they?
Lj:Just no, that's that that's not for me.
Tim:That was hugely enjoyable, and every so often a musical comes along that neither of us know very much about, and it certainly opens the floodgates for us. Hopefully, it's done the same for you guys listening. Um, you know, if there's other musicals out there that you're like, I bet you they don't know this one. They haven't ever mentioned this one. Send it to us, absolutely let us know the it's getting to the stage where I'm like intrigued by the musicals I don't know. Yeah, and like I we know a lot of musicals, do you know what I mean?
Lj:No, do you know what it's just lovely experiencing something new and which isn't new? Yes, yes, which it blows my mind.
Tim:I'm like, how is this not like a thing? Like, how is it not talked about?
Lj:People have said to us, you're gonna run in a musical soon. We're like, we're never gonna run in a musical.
Tim:Can I tell you, there isn't a chance. Never, even the list that we have.
Lj:We haven't even got halfway through it.
Tim:Yeah, absolutely. But yeah.
Lj:That was fun. That was fun. He enjoyed that.
Tim:Come back next week.
Lj:Every week, too.
Tim:For another musical feast. Aaron, are you joining us next week?
Lj:Yes, please.
Tim:We're doing a Marvel musical.
Lj:Oh, please. The biggest flop ever.
Tim:Yeah. Spider-Man. No, we can't say that because now we have to do it.
Lj:Oh no, we're not doing that.
Tim:I don't think I can listen to that.
Lj:No.
Tim:We'll see.
Lj:Okay. We'll be back next week talking about musicals anyway.
Tim:Well, you an arm will too. Bye.
