This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tommy: How do you feel about, uh, instead of 2020?

[0:02] Jimi: We start calling it 20 twice.

[0:05] Tommy: I adore that.

[0:06] Jimi: Isn't that fun?

[0:07] Tommy: Twenty twice.

[0:08] Jimi: You never be able to do it again.

[0:11] Tommy: I really love that.

[0:12] Jimi: Twenty twice.

[0:13] Tommy: Yeah.

[0:14] Jimi: I'm into it.

[0:15] Tommy: I'm doing it.

[0:15] Jimi: You're sold.

[0:17] Tommy: The decade so nice they named it twice.

[0:19] Jimi: Twice.

[0:21] Tommy: Get it trending, kids.

[0:22] Jimi: Twenty twice.

[0:24] Tommy: I love that actually.

[0:25] Jimi: It rolls off the tongue.

[0:26] Tommy: I don't think I made it up, but like most of my the pieces that live in my brain, I never know where it came from or if it's even true.

[0:34] Tommy: Somebody get us another drink!

[0:35] Tommy: Welcome to Jim and Tommy's Musical Theatre Happy Hour.

[0:38] Tommy: I'm Tommy.

[0:39] Jimi: And I'm Jimi, and this is the only musical theatre podcast with aperitifs.

[0:45] Tommy: And light motifs.

[0:47] Jimi: Oh.

[0:49] Tommy: Here we take apart your favorite shows, muddle them together with a shot of buffoonery, and pour you a refreshing glass of musical theatre conversation.

[0:58] Jimi: What are you drinking today, Tommy?

[1:00] Tommy: I didn't prepare for this, so welcome to the cuff. Um, I am drinking. Let me just have a sip.

[1:07] Tommy: Glug glug glug.

[1:11] Jimi: Oh, it's giving me food poisoning.

[1:14] Tommy: Oh, how depressing.

[1:15] Jimi: I know.

[1:16] Tommy: Did you make this for me?

[1:17] Jimi: No, it must have been the guards.

[1:20] Tommy: Uh, who knows?

[1:21] Jimi: No.

[1:23] Tommy: Why?

[1:23] Jimi: Why are we—why the charade?

[1:27] Tommy: Why this whole facade?

[1:29] Jimi: Well, let me tell you in the form of a quiz question.

[1:32] Jimi: This musical accidentally shut down a so-called musical theatre lab because it premiered first.

[1:40] Tommy: The lab was working on The Secret Garden, my favorite year, and this show.

[1:45] Jimi: Hal Prince is of the opinion that the lab would still be functioning today had The Secret Garden premiered first instead of this musical.

[1:55] Tommy: What could it be?

[1:56] Jimi: Well sure, Tommy.

[1:57] Tommy: What is it?

[1:58] Jimi: It maybe got its own kiss.

[2:02] Tommy: Ho ho ho ho ho ho.

[2:04] Jimi: It's Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[2:06] Tommy: It is Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[2:07] Jimi: It is.

[2:20] Tommy: Her kiss.

[2:23] Jimi: Sooner or later in Sunday or gloom.

[2:27] Tommy: When the red candles flicker, she'll walk in the room.

[2:30] Jimi: And the curtains will shake, and the fire will hiss.

[2:34] Tommy: Here comes her kiss.

[2:47] Jimi: And her black beach.

[2:51] Tommy: And you're a king to moon, but you're caught in the web of the Spider Woman.

[3:00] Jimi: In her vela bed cave, you can scream.

[3:06] Tommy: But you cannot escape.

[3:10] Jimi: I don't understand what you just said there.

[3:12] Tommy: It's own because you get kissed by the Spider Woman and then you die.

[3:15] Jimi: Oh, that was good.

[3:17] Tommy: Yeah.

[3:18] Jimi: That was layered.

[3:21] Tommy: Well done.

[3:22] Jimi: It was something.

[3:24] Tommy: Yeah, no, I think that was good.

[3:26] Jimi: I can't even keep up with you this time.

[3:28] Tommy: We'll see if you'll see how long it lasts.

[3:31] Jimi: How the tables have turned in 20 twice.

[3:33] Tommy: How the turntables.

[3:35] Jimi: Yep, we've lost our guest.

[3:36] Tommy: So there we go.

[3:37] Jimi: We're back.

[3:38] Tommy: Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[3:39] Jimi: Oh my god, Tommy, premiered or was workshopped 30 years ago.

[3:43] Tommy: Yeah, but don't say what year that was, because 30 years ago it was 1970.

[3:48] Jimi: Obviously.

[3:50] Tommy: And then two years later in 1992, it premiered in the West End.

[3:54] Jimi: Exactly.

[3:56] Tommy: Oh Lord.

[3:57] Jimi: Yeah, I know that.

[3:58] Tommy: Like this is—I was alive.

[4:00] Jimi: I know.

[4:00] Tommy: That's a wild thing to think about having listened to the show too.

[4:04] Jimi: Because it does feel older.

[4:06] Tommy: I mean, I guess I was one.

[4:09] Jimi: I was also one.

[4:10] Tommy: Wouldn't have been an appropriate show for me to see.

[4:12] Jimi: No, I didn't go see the premiere in the West End in later two.

[4:17] Tommy: Uh, yes, and then it opened up on Broadway in 1993, um, after its big old journey.

[4:22] Jimi: Um, and critically was a big old success.

[4:26] Tommy: Yes.

[4:27] Jimi: Um, and got a slew of Tony Award nominations, won a whole bunch as well.

[4:32] Tommy: Maybe two or three years, 900 some performances.

[4:35] Jimi: Absolutely.

[4:36] Tommy: Um, many people kind of laud it as one of Kander and Ebb's best pieces.

[4:41] Jimi: Yeah.

[4:42] Tommy: Oh, already it begins, ladies and gentlemen.

[4:46] Jimi: Um, I'm excited about that.

[4:48] Tommy: Okay, that's good.

[4:49] Jimi: Um, so Kiss of the Spider Woman. Let's say what it's all about.

[4:54] Tommy: Is it about a woman with eight legs?

[4:56] Jimi: Yes!

[4:57] Tommy: End of um, uh, no, uh, uh, Kiss of the Spider Woman takes place predominantly in a jail cell in Argentina in a time long past.

[5:13] Jimi: It would be the 70s.

[5:16] Tommy: That sounds about right.

[5:17] Jimi: In the 70s, um, lots of unrest in Argentina around that time, uh, and centers around a very odd couple styled, uh, group of, uh, duo of prisoners.

[5:28] Jimi: Uh, Luis Molina, who's a gay window dresser, um, who's been, uh, incarcerated for somewhere between being gay and corrupting a minor.

[5:39] Tommy: Um, and then he meets up with, uh, a revolutionary Marxist, Valentine, who gets thrown into a cell.

[5:46] Jimi: Um, they at first don't get off, but then the show, uh, chronicles their relationship growing.

[5:54] Tommy: Yeah, just, uh, their companionship, the forced companionship, uh, that occurs from living in a confined space with someone without any choice.

[6:04] Jimi: Uh, and we also kind of see the world of these two people through the fantasies, um, uh, that Molina creates, um, through discussing various film scenes that he loves, uh, starring this woman called Aurora, um, who one of her characters, uh, that she plays is called The Spider Woman.

[6:29] Tommy: And if she kisses you, you're—that's it, you're dead.

[6:29] Jimi: That's it, you're dead.

[6:33] Tommy: And, uh, Molina is—it's the only movie of Aurora's that he can't watch, hasn't seen or something.

[6:40] Jimi: It's the only character she plays that he's afraid of.

[6:43] Tommy: He's fully afraid of her.

[6:45] Jimi: Um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it all takes place in this cell, but you do get to kind of see the world that's happening around it at the moment, um, at that time, sorry, uh, in Argentina, um, through all of these kind of fantasies and, uh, scenes that they discussed.

[7:07] Tommy: Absolutely. Well, should we talk about that world around them?

[7:10] Jimi: Touches like we should best up on the dressing them up.

[7:15] Tommy: I was the cream of the crop.

[7:17] Jimi: The way I buckled the belt, folded the felt, helped me to get where I got.

[7:23] Tommy: Before I got where I got, I was the absolute top.

[7:28] Jimi: For example, once I asked for a Balenciaga scarf to stuff in a mannequin's purse.

[7:35] Tommy: They told me no one on earth will see.

[7:37] Jimi: I answered no one on earth but me.

[7:40] Tommy: I stood my ground as no other dresser does.

[7:44] Jimi: And darling, guess what?

[7:46] Tommy: Balenciaga was dressing them up.

[7:51] Jimi: I was a grand.

[7:53] Tommy: As I adjusted each hem, I kept on dazzling them at my particular store, which was the best in the town.

[8:02] Jimi: You'll never catch them wearing a frown or catch them dressing me down for my finesse.

[8:10] Tommy: We've actually briefly touched upon this before, Thomas.

[8:15] Jimi: Have we?

[8:15] Tommy: As I said, no memories, only riddles.

[8:19] Jimi: Exactly.

[8:19] Tommy: Once upon a time, it was I was trying to do it where you riddles.

[8:22] Jimi: I can't because I'm so, um, fluent.

[8:26] Tommy: That's not true.

[8:27] Jimi: Really bad.

[8:28] Tommy: Um, no, so it was when we did Evita.

[8:31] Jimi: Yes.

[8:32] Tommy: The other Argentinian musical.

[8:35] Jimi: Um, but this in many ways is like the sequel to Evita.

[8:40] Tommy: This is, uh, what happened, uh, after, uh, Perón got into power and then was overthrown.

[8:47] Jimi: Sure.

[8:47] Tommy: I think maybe twice he was overthrown, actually, but this is after that, um, in response, uh, to what was happening in what was called the Dirty War, which was basically the government's war against counterculture.

[9:02] Jimi: Um, so this was kind of happening concurrently at the same time with sort of hippie movement that we know all about in here, where the youngsters were kind of having their own opinions, um, and were doing their own thing.

[9:17] Tommy: Yeah, and the kind of leftist ideals and these Marxist ideals were coming more to the fore.

[9:25] Jimi: Um, and they weren't, uh, they weren't staying underground anymore.

[9:29] Tommy: They were coming forward and they were wanting to have their voice heard.

[9:32] Jimi: Yeah.

[9:33] Tommy: Um, and the government decided that that wasn't good, that wasn't productive for society, um, and it opened up many doors to bad things, so they put a stop to it, um, through many just very malicious and dark, horrible means, um, which is why it's called this Dirty War.

[9:53] Jimi: Uh, because it was very—it was dirty.

[9:58] Tommy: The things that they were doing were—wasn't political, it wasn't, um, tactful, diplomatic, it was deplorable.

[10:06] Jimi: Sure.

[10:07] Tommy: Um, in so many ways.

[10:10] Jimi: Um, and so in Kiss of the Spider Woman, you get to see a hint of it, I guess.

[10:18] Tommy: You get to—you get a certain sense that, you know, the police in this prison don't do things by the book, you know.

[10:25] Jimi: They're not gonna get slapped with a complaint charge from a prisoner, and that's gonna get upheld by the, you know, there's none of that going on.

[10:32] Tommy: What they say goes, they are very much in charge.

[10:34] Jimi: Yes.

[10:35] Tommy: Um, but it's really only a kind of tiny snapshot as to some of the awful things that were going on.

[10:41] Jimi: Right.

[10:41] Tommy: It is more the setting for this place, not maybe the primary plot of the—

[10:47] Jimi: Exactly.

[10:47] Tommy: Yeah.

[10:49] Jimi: It's definitely like—that's the thing.

[10:49] Tommy: So Kiss of the Spider Woman isn't about the Dirty War.

[10:52] Jimi: Yeah.

[10:53] Tommy: Not specifically.

[10:54] Jimi: Certainly, yeah.

[10:55] Tommy: Is a way into it.

[10:56] Jimi: I would say like I didn't learn about the Dirty War in, uh, US history or in world history in American curriculum.

[11:05] Tommy: Did you learn much about Argentinian politics?

[11:08] Jimi: I've only learned stuff about Argentinian politics specifically through musical theatre.

[11:12] Tommy: Yeah, me too, which is a wild thing.

[11:15] Jimi: Um, I think that's a ridiculous thing.

[11:19] Tommy: Yeah.

[11:19] Jimi: Because it's so significant and so important.

[11:22] Tommy: Right.

[11:22] Jimi: And yet, like I don't even—there may be plays out there.

[11:26] Tommy: Sure.

[11:27] Jimi: Uh, talking about this, but certainly none that I've heard of or seen that have come to the fore originally.

[11:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[11:36] Jimi: And certainly Kiss of the Spider Woman, uh, which I don't know if we actually mentioned based on a novel, but also has a couple different movie adaptations, like certainly not an unheard of piece in, um, you know, uh, a marrowcentric, um—

[11:53] Tommy: Eurocentric literature.

[11:54] Jimi: Yeah, like John Hurt won an Oscar for his portrayal of, uh, Molina.

[11:58] Tommy: Yeah.

[11:58] Jimi: So it was a signific—again, a significant maybe in the book itself was hugely significant because it was written almost contemporaneously.

[12:07] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[12:08] Jimi: Um, obviously that kind of exposing this world that was happening at the time.

[12:14] Tommy: Very dangerously.

[12:15] Jimi: Very, very dangerously.

[12:17] Tommy: Um, and one of the main characters is a gay man, like an out gay man.

[12:22] Jimi: Uh-huh.

[12:22] Tommy: Um, not even a subtext gay man.

[12:24] Jimi: He was, you know, that's the point.

[12:26] Tommy: Yeah.

[12:26] Jimi: Um, so the book was extremely controversial, but it's still kind of stood the test of time and has obviously been adapted with things like this.

[12:34] Tommy: Yeah.

[12:35] Jimi: Very importantly.

[12:37] Tommy: But yeah, in terms of, uh, what we see of the Dirty War in Kiss of the Spider Woman, most of it's kind of done through the torture and kind of manipulation of our two inmates, Molina and Valentine.

[12:53] Jimi: Yes.

[12:55] Tommy: And we do see some scenes of torture where they kind of beat their feet, they poison their food.

[13:02] Jimi: Yeah.

[13:03] Tommy: They kind of play them off of each other.

[13:05] Jimi: That's a really kind of crucial thing all the way through the show, to be honest.

[13:09] Tommy: Yeah.

[13:10] Jimi: That's almost like the inciting incident.

[13:12] Tommy: Yes.

[13:13] Jimi: For everything.

[13:15] Tommy: And is Molina's main drive is that the reason he exists and, you know, retreats into these, uh, worlds of fantastical movies is to avoid the torture of—literally avoid looking at it and experiencing it.

[13:28] Tommy: Yeah.

[13:29] Jimi: Can I tell you, I was disappointed. Um, the—so they did, um, Where You Are at the Tonys.

[13:36] Tommy: Um, like it's a dance number.

[13:39] Jimi: I'm picturing things in my head, and what I want, and who knows, maybe a revival has done this, and if not, please steal this idea because I think it's great.

[13:49] Jimi: Um, the, uh, so Where You Are were maybe halfway through act one.

[13:52] Jimi: Um, they're gonna bring in a prisoner to torture in front of Valentine and Molina to try and get them to talk as a, you know, kind of subsidiary torture.

[14:01] Jimi: Um, Molina says, not for me. I—here's what I do.

[14:03] Jimi: Um, I envision Aurora and then on comes Chita Rivera to do the dance number Where You Are, um, which is exactly what you'd expect.

[14:13] Jimi: It's a, you know, big production dance number with a bunch of burly men surrounding Chita Rivera.

[14:18] Tommy: What I want is right behind that for there to be the torture.

[14:24] Jimi: And they don't do that.

[14:25] Tommy: And it maybe dis—that's what I pictured.

[14:28] Jimi: Yeah.

[14:29] Tommy: And I think that's an extremely good point.

[14:38] Jimi: Sure.

[14:39] Tommy: Because we're still in the 90s.

[14:42] Jimi: And we don't talk about the 90s that much on here.

[14:45] Tommy: Yeah.

[14:46] Jimi: Because it's a tricky time because it's a transition.

[14:50] Tommy: Yeah.

[14:51] Jimi: Um, where a lot of stuff is very light and Andrew Lloyd Webber-y.

[14:57] Tommy: Right?

[14:57] Jimi: Yeah.

[14:58] Tommy: Um, and we've talked about that quite a lot.

[15:01] Jimi: Right.

[15:01] Tommy: What we haven't really talked about is the opposing side to that.

[15:05] Jimi: Yeah, the like super dark.

[15:07] Tommy: Um, very dark, kind of not pseudo-intellectual, like very much intellectual, but trying to just subvert the form and move away from what we know as like the musical comedy, you know, Starlight Express.

[15:23] Jimi: We're moving away from that.

[15:25] Tommy: Right.

[15:25] Jimi: Um, and we're trying to really kind of use musical theater to, uh, kind of do exactly what Kiss of the Spider Woman does and shed light on things, yeah, make a commentary on things, um, but using that musical theater form.

[15:40] Tommy: Yeah, because like if you look at Kiss of the Spider Woman, one in '93, it's bookended on either side.

[15:44] Jimi: '92, Crazy for You ran, uh, or one and then '94, we go right into Passion.

[15:52] Tommy: Um, but you look at the things surrounding it, you know, Kiss of the Spider Woman up against it the year before, Five Guys Named Mo, Jelly's Last Jam, and then of course Falsettos.

[16:01] Jimi: Um, yeah, it's an interesting time, the 90s.

[16:04] Tommy: It is, it absolutely is.

[16:05] Jimi: And I think like, um, because it's not that long until we get like Urinetown.

[16:10] Tommy: Sure.

[16:10] Jimi: Like we kind of circle the pendulum swings backward almost as a parody of itself.

[16:16] Tommy: But I think, but see, because I'm making this the point of sense that like, um, Urinetown is subverting the form.

[16:22] Jimi: Like, Urinetown's core is actually really dark.

[16:26] Tommy: Right.

[16:26] Jimi: Um, and it does make a weird commentary.

[16:29] Tommy: Yeah.

[16:29] Jimi: Um, but using the kind of this is musical comedy, everyone, aha, but is it?

[16:34] Tommy: Right.

[16:34] Jimi: I mean, that kind of like take a look at yourself.

[16:37] Tommy: Yeah, like almost a parody of musical theater.

[16:39] Jimi: Yeah.

[16:39] Tommy: Do you—I don't know. Have we talked about this on podcasts?

[16:42] Jimi: But I do think that like the, you know, as we often jokingly refer to it, the dark time of the nineties.

[16:49] Tommy: I think a lot of this very directly is attributed to the AIDS epidemic in New York.

[16:54] Jimi: Yeah, we've talked about it before, um, but it's so significant.

[16:59] Tommy: Yeah, and so I think that I—it is this is a, you know, assumptions about art that was all created in a vacuum, so it's hard to put any kind of through line through this.

[17:08] Jimi: But either you swing towards something completely, you know, uh, vapid and toe-tappy to like dive into that escapism, or art leads you to the dark, dark places that our real world is living.

[17:24] Tommy: Um, explicitly in the case of Falsettos, but even in Kiss of the Spider Woman, um, you know, is exploring a dark, a really dark theme, even darker than a lot of other Kander and Ebb's used to go.

[17:36] Jimi: Like, uh, Cabaret seems plenty dark, but also has that distance that I think the subject matter of Kiss of the Spider Woman doesn't have.

[17:45] Tommy: No, not at all.

[17:45] Jimi: It's—it places you right in the thick of it.

[17:47] Tommy: Yeah.

[17:48] Jimi: I would say very much so.

[17:49] Tommy: Um, but yeah, to jump back to your point about wanting more of that darkness.

[17:54] Jimi: Sure.

[17:55] Tommy: I think it's because we weren't fully there yet.

[17:57] Jimi: Yeah.

[17:57] Tommy: Um, I think if a production of this was mounted now, yeah, it would go there.

[18:03] Jimi: Yeah, absolutely.

[18:04] Tommy: I think it absolutely would.

[18:06] Jimi: Um, because it wouldn't detract from the story.

[18:08] Tommy: You would still understand that as long as Molina wasn't observing the torture, as long as Molina wasn't getting involved in that.

[18:15] Jimi: Right.

[18:15] Tommy: But you make that the whole thing.

[18:16] Jimi: Chita Rivera grabs him, turns him around, it's like, no, no, no, dance with me, dance with me.

[18:20] Tommy: Here we go.

[18:20] Jimi: And like you see like the whatever prisoner, like I—it's, you know, it would be the sort of number that would be equally as funny and grotesque at the same time.

[18:30] Tommy: Exactly.

[18:31] Jimi: In the tone of the show.

[18:33] Tommy: Yeah, and because it's interesting, like a lot of the reviews at the time, um, because they're still getting to grips with the idea of musical comedy not being musical comedy.

[18:41] Jimi: Right.

[18:41] Tommy: Um, they talk about the fact that, well, actually it's too irreverent, like they can't get this balance of, you know, seriousness and then glitz and glam.

[18:50] Jimi: Sure.

[18:50] Tommy: Whereas what we kind of know now is actually when you mar the two together, yeah, it's—that's what's shocking.

[18:57] Jimi: That's where it gets you in the gut because you need to—you need to go there.

[19:02] Tommy: Right.

[19:03] Jimi: You know, I mean, we'd—when it's just full-on darkness, yeah, we're kind of numb to that.

[19:07] Tommy: Right, but when you combine the two, it is the sort of thing that, you know, we're seeing between Oklahoma and now what's coming out of the woodwork about West Side Story.

[19:16] Jimi: Absolutely.

[19:17] Tommy: We're th—this is the time where audiences seem ready for that.

[19:21] Jimi: Yeah, it's—we're in the thick of it.

[19:22] Tommy: Absolutely.

[19:23] Jimi: So, um, yeah, I think it would be so interesting to see a production of this now.

[19:28] Tommy: Yeah, um, for many reasons and a few reasons that I think we'll get to in a bit.

[19:32] Jimi: Um, but one of the things, uh, I do want to bring up, and I brought this back up, um, if you remember everyone from our Evita episode, um, is it talks about this musical called These Trees Are Made of Blood.

[19:43] Tommy: Yes.

[19:44] Jimi: Um, so that musical is like what we're talking about right now.

[19:50] Tommy: Yes.

[19:51] Jimi: Um, it's—it really, so it's set again in the Dirty War, um, but specifically about the Dirty War, um, and more specifically to do with the disappeared.

[20:03] Tommy: Um, so that whole thing if, again, if people know this or not, because it's—it’s like I say, it's not taught in US history, it's not taught in our history.

[20:12] Jimi: Um, but basically one of the worst things that happened in the Dirty War is people, young children, uh, and teenagers who were involved in this kind of counterculture movement, these protesters, um, would just be kidnapped, um, and imprisoned without anyone in their family knowing they would just disappear.

[20:32] Tommy: And we're talking in the like tens of thousands here.

[20:35] Jimi: Um, as part of this every day, um, the only people that would fight against them, uh, were the mothers and the mothers would come, uh, to the Plaza de Mayo, um, in Argentina, uh, and protest every day and call for their children.

[20:55] Tommy: Um, as this protesting they still do it till today, um, because their children have still disappeared.

[21:01] Jimi: They still don't know where their children are.

[21:03] Tommy: Yeah, um, and that is like to think of that as a part of history that you don't know anything about.

[21:10] Jimi: Oh yeah, is baffling because that is huge.

[21:13] Tommy: Yeah, I mean that is—it's crazy significant.

[21:16] Jimi: And to—I remember seeing this show, finding out about this and being like, what have I—where have I been living?

[21:23] Tommy: Because it's not like this is still the Western world, you know, this like—and it's relatively contemporary.

[21:29] Jimi: Right.

[21:29] Tommy: And our concept of what it is.

[21:30] Jimi: Well, and it is—I mean I always struggle with this because I like our podcast being kind of an escape from some of the horrors of reality.

[21:38] Tommy: Yeah.

[21:39] Jimi: But like man oh man, can I draw you some straight lines between, you know, kids being taken away from their parents and trapped and political unrest and unknown political prisoners.

[21:49] Tommy: And, you know, fuck it.

[21:51] Jimi: Like the terrible treatment of gay people and then growing, you know, uh, sometimes a meme, sometimes not about sending them to electroshock therapy camps.

[22:03] Tommy: Like let me tell you, history seems to have a habit.

[22:08] Jimi: That's it, and but it's—it's one of those things, it's like how can we learn from history when we don't know these stories?

[22:12] Tommy: Right.

[22:12] Jimi: Yeah.

[22:13] Tommy: You know, and we—that's a—and like to experience them, you know, we talk about this tons and tons to the point where I think we've beaten the dead horse too much, but like to experience in the—in the way that we can say in the same breath this is not a musical about the Dirty War, but it is a musical that makes you feel all the things that people felt during the Dirty War.

[22:32] Jimi: Yeah.

[22:33] Tommy: Yeah.

[22:33] Jimi: And that's the thing that, you know, theater, musical theater, this sort of art form does so well is documenting not the specific like historical facts which sometimes seem cold and human, but instead documenting like the stories and how people feel and what it felt like to be those people and then effectively communicating them to a contemporary audience.

[22:55] Tommy: Yeah.

[22:56] Jimi: Um, yeah, a hundred percent.

[22:57] Tommy: And I think that like these two shows, um, capture this horrific part of history.

[23:04] Jimi: Yeah.

[23:05] Tommy: Really well.

[23:05] Jimi: In two very, very different ways, but at the heart of it, they're both extremely human.

[23:09] Tommy: Yeah.

[23:09] Jimi: Um, and I think that's very important.

[23:12] Tommy: So I really implore people.

[23:13] Jimi: I'll put the cast recording in the notes, uh, for These Trees Are Made of Blood.

[23:17] Tommy: Because I want it to come back.

[23:18] Jimi: I honestly think it's incredible.

[23:19] Tommy: I think it's such an incredible piece.

[23:22] Jimi: Um, and it's that kind of thing is like if I can get more people knowing that this happened, right?

[23:27] Tommy: All the better.

[23:28] Jimi: Yeah.

[23:28] Tommy: Um, so maybe if everyone listens to it on SoundCloud, someone will be like, hey, it's another production of this.

[23:34] Jimi: Yeah.

[23:35] Tommy: Um, so let's call for that.

[23:36] Jimi: Because it's honestly so incredible.

[23:38] Tommy: Um, but also let's get another production of Kiss of the Spider Woman, because we know that that works.

[23:42] Jimi: That's true.

[23:42] Tommy: Um, I would love that too.

[23:45] Jimi: Uh, yeah, it just—two very good shows capturing this really horrible part of history.

[23:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[23:53] Jimi: Well, and Jimi, this show almost didn't happen a thousand times over.

[23:57] Jimi: I know.

[23:58] Tommy: Um, let's find out why.

[24:02] ♪ Musical number: "The Day After That" — performed by the cast of Kiss of the Spider Woman ♪

[25:16] Jimi: So, yeah, we talked about it in the quiz question. The origins of Kiss of the Spider Woman are quite interesting.

[25:23] Tommy: Yeah.

[25:24] Jimi: As often musical theatre productions are.

[25:27] Tommy: So I think it started off right at the start.

[25:30] Jimi: Um, with the whole creative team being immediately on board.

[25:33] Tommy: I think it was Fred went to John and was like, like, what are we gonna do? Let's try this.

[25:37] Jimi: Let's do a Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[25:39] Tommy: John was like, absolutely, that sounds perfect.

[25:42] Jimi: Um, they went to Terrence McNally, who was like, sounds boss, then they went to Hal Prince.

[25:49] Tommy: They've all worked together at this point, and they're like, Hal Prince is like superb, let's do it.

[25:53] Jimi: Although he weirdly didn't like the film.

[25:56] Tommy: Yeah, which I found interesting.

[25:58] Jimi: Uh, Chita Rivera also found the film difficult to follow, I think she's confusing, yeah.

[26:03] Tommy: Which is, um, fascinating.

[26:05] Jimi: But both loved the book.

[26:06] Tommy: Yeah.

[26:07] Jimi: So there you go, that's someone to go to.

[26:09] Tommy: Um, and so they've mounted this creative team, everyone's on board, then they take it to everyone else, and everyone else is like, it will never work.

[26:17] Jimi: Right.

[26:17] Tommy: You can't do this.

[26:18] Jimi: Yeah.

[26:19] Tommy: Um, and you don't really find out—they never really discuss why, but I can only assume it's because of the subject matter.

[26:26] Jimi: Sure, and it does, it sounds like there are—I couldn't track down any old reviews of the original.

[26:30] Tommy: So they took it to, um, uh, the State University of New York had a program called New Musicals, where they were gonna do just this.

[26:37] Jimi: They were gonna workshop a bunch of musicals.

[26:39] Tommy: This was the quiz question, Secret Garden was workshopped there, My Favorite Year was workshopped there, and Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[26:44] Jimi: Um, and I can't find—I found a lot of like this thing is happening articles about the production, but no good reviews of it.

[26:54] Tommy: But when you hear the creative team talk about it, they very much seem to say, like, it wasn't good.

[27:00] Jimi: It was, you know, it was rough.

[27:01] Tommy: And we were workshopping it, and that was the point.

[27:05] Jimi: Um, but the drama of it all, um, and like this is a—I find this concept fascinating.

[27:13] Tommy: Um, very explicitly based on some of the stuff we do, Jimmy.

[27:17] Jimi: Um, but the creative team at New Musicals at, uh, the State University of New York Purchase, um, asked that New York, uh, critics not see the shows, or at the very least not review the shows, um, because they're workshops, because they're works in progress.

[27:37] Tommy: And the reviewers said, uh, thanks, but no thanks, and then went and published the reviews anyway, which almost sunk Kiss of the Spider Woman because it was not reviewed well.

[27:45] Jimi: Exactly.

[27:46] Tommy: I mean, so basically the—the reviewers, their opinion was, well, you're spending all these money on lights and set and costumes, why wouldn't you want it to be reviewed?

[27:56] Jimi: Right.

[27:57] Tommy: And, um, Hal Prince kind of rebuked this, uh, saying that, well, the whole point of new musicals, um, and this workshop series that they were doing is that anytime you do a workshop, you don't have these things.

[28:09] Jimi: Right.

[28:10] Tommy: So you never get a sense of what this show actually looks like because a lot of the theater, especially specifically musical theater, relies on the spectacle.

[28:18] Jimi: The trappings are a part of it. A huge part of it. And especially something like this, where you need to see this contrast between the prison and these beautiful decadent scenes with Aurora.

[28:29] Tommy: Right.

[28:29] Jimi: Um, it's intrinsic.

[28:31] Tommy: Yeah.

[28:31] Jimi: Uh and so what Hal did was just give someone that opportunity of like, well, here you go. Let's actually give this a go and try it out.

[28:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[28:38] Jimi: It's an incredible idea.

[28:39] Tommy: Yeah.

[28:39] Jimi: It's so, so good.

[28:41] Tommy: Yeah. Um so yeah, when they found out that the reviewers were coming, um, I think all of the creative teams from all of the shows and the workshops went to the New York Times and were like, listen, this is what new musicals is. This is why we don't think this is a good idea for you to come and review this.

[28:58] Jimi: We don't want you to do this.

[28:58] Tommy: And they did it anyway.

[29:01] Jimi: Right.

[29:01] Tommy: Yeah.

[29:02] Jimi: Well, and there and I don't understand. I think it was, I can't remember whether it was Hal or the producer who was talking about this, but that like what was different between workshopping something at New Musicals and like the old the older tried and true tradition of like trying something out of town in Boston or Philadelphia, is like in Boston or Philadelphia, you don't get to put that big workshop. This is a workshop, you know, asterisk next to the production.

[29:29] Tommy: It's still a production.

[29:31] Jimi: And we're still there nowadays. Like something previews in Chicago, it's still like the general public still goes and they still want it to be a show. You don't get that kind of like artistic leeway.

[29:42] Tommy: Whereas like you could go into new musicals and be like, here's Act One. We don't know Act Two yet.

[29:45] Jimi: Yeah.

[29:47] Tommy: Let us know what you think. And like that seemed to be more of the spirit of the thing.

[29:51] Jimi: Yeah. But I want to like, what do you we do this, right? We've talked about shows before they've hit Broadway.

[29:58] Tommy: Mm-hmm.

[30:00] Jimi: And I don't know, these are the th this is also why I always bristle a little at the moniker critic when applied to myself, because I don't want to be what these people from the New York Times did.

[30:14] Tommy: Mm-hmm.

[30:15] Jimi: Well, I think I don't think we are, because what we're uh when we're having these discussions, we're not saying go see this show or this show isn't worth your money.

[30:24] Tommy: Sure.

[30:24] Jimi: We're saying this is this show's place in the world of musical theater that we know and love.

[30:30] Tommy: Yeah.

[30:30] Jimi: Um and I think anytime we have talked about shows, whether it was Comet or whether it was um like Be More Chill, uh we will always talk about the fact that it's a work in progress that it's still going.

[30:49] Tommy: Um that kind of thing is to me helpful.

[30:52] Jimi: Yeah. Because I mean, obviously, yes, who are we to you know give Hal Prince some thoughts?

[30:58] Tommy: Sure, but I will also say who are New York Times critics.

[31:00] Jimi: Like precisely, but that's the thing is like we're not critiquing because it's not it isn't the finished article.

[31:06] Tommy: Yeah.

[31:06] Jimi: And we are well aware of that when we discuss these things that it's it's got a room to breathe and we have hopes for where it will breathe to.

[31:13] Tommy: Whereas what the New York Times is doing was like, this doesn't work.

[31:16] Jimi: Right.

[31:17] Tommy: This is silly. This is too, you know, this whole flashy thing, but talking about the dark, like this doesn't work.

[31:23] Jimi: Yeah.

[31:24] Tommy: That isn't that's not fair.

[31:26] Jimi: Do you think I don't know quite how to frame this thought, and so let me word vomit on you for a second.

[31:32] Tommy: Like thank you.

[31:33] Jimi: I've got a towel, so excellent.

[31:35] Tommy: Uh when does the creation of something end then?

[31:41] Jimi: Like well I I I mean, I'm sure it's cliché, but I I don't think it really it does.

[31:45] Tommy: I'm sure you just decide to put it to bed.

[31:48] Jimi: Yeah.

[31:48] Tommy: Um, or someone makes that decision for you.

[31:51] Jimi: Yeah. As someone who's written things and who does write things.

[31:56] Tommy: Yeah.

[31:57] Jimi: I will always keep working on it. We were just talking about it before the podcast.

[32:00] Tommy: Yeah.

[32:01] Jimi: I'm doing Into the Woods again, and you know, for the 15 umteenth billion time.

[32:05] Tommy: Um they made some changes and it blows my mind.

[32:10] Jimi: Yeah.

[32:10] Tommy: Like the published MTI script has changes in it that I don't remember from last time I did it.

[32:15] Jimi: And like I know this musical backwards and forwards.

[32:18] Tommy: Um, which is wild to me.

[32:20] Jimi: But so then like here, I think this is my more concrete follow-up question.

[32:24] Tommy: Um, we're seeing kind of a uh uh death to critics push right now.

[32:29] Jimi: We talked about it with Lightning Thief.

[32:31] Tommy: Um like I am and between us and how some of the internet approaches things like Lightning Thief and Be More Chill, and some of these things that have a life even before Broadway, which we adore is this like where where which one's the chicken, which one's the egg?

[32:50] Jimi: Are we as a art growing culture starting to appreciate more that like the process is the product and the line isn't drawn and this thing will always be in flux and I get to just see what it is tonight, which is so exciting?

[33:06] Tommy: Or is it more like we're seeing a like death to print media and the uh intellectual elite and we're just embracing um, you know, uh uh people can love what they love and screw the rest.

[33:20] Jimi: Like, and certainly it's bits and pieces, but I I do see like two different ways to get to the same conclusion there.

[33:28] Tommy: Yeah, yeah, I don't think they need to be like mutually exclusive there to be honest, because like if we take something like the Lightning Thief, for example, yeah, the way that our musical theater, and particularly American musical theater is structured, is after your previews on Broadway, your show is done.

[33:49] Jimi: Right.

[33:50] Tommy: Right?

[33:51] Jimi: And just I think just from even like a legal standpoint.

[33:54] Tommy: Right.

[33:54] Jimi: You you close the book, people's contracts are over.

[33:58] Tommy: It's it's done.

[33:59] Jimi: Yeah.

[33:59] Tommy: Um so no, sorry, I I don't mean I I mean like once the show's up and running.

[34:04] Jimi: Oh, got it, right?

[34:06] Tommy: It's done.

[34:07] Jimi: Very rarely will they then continue to make changes because and I I don't I don't know the specific like equity policies on this and things like that.

[34:15] Tommy: I'm sure it just has things to be able to do.

[34:16] Jimi: But I know those I know there are policies in place true too about like script locking and like when and like Tony eligibility and the you know it must be substantially the same from when it opens to it the end of its eligibility date and like all this sort of stuff is is baked into what we assume is this institution.

[34:34] Tommy: Yeah, um, and we know that there are exceptions, and we've we've talked about it before in the show, yeah.

[34:39] Jimi: Um but I think uh my expectation as an audience member is if something is after previews, what I will then go to expect is something that feels complete.

[34:51] Tommy: Sure.

[34:51] Jimi: Right? Up until that moment, yeah, I don't mind.

[34:56] Tommy: It's anyone's guess.

[34:58] Jimi: And I go in with that expectation.

[34:59] Tommy: And like you just kind of said, I find a lot of excitement in that.

[35:04] Jimi: Yeah.

[35:05] Tommy: I I love seeing the bare bones because I love seeing the transition, I love seeing the change.

[35:11] Jimi: Um because that's where the creativity is.

[35:15] Tommy: Yeah.

[35:15] Jimi: Well, and they uh the Jimmy and I both watched uh there's a beautiful interview, which I'm sure we'll put in the show notes.

[35:21] Tommy: It's absolutely uh like working in the theater.

[35:24] Jimi: I've watched a couple of these from for I watched the Lion King one.

[35:27] Tommy: Um I always love it.

[35:28] Jimi: Yeah, there's a Ragtime one as well that's really good.

[35:30] Tommy: They like pull together all the creators of a show and just interview them in what looks like the dirtiest, dankest late 90s basement in the world.

[35:37] Jimi: Um, but there's one of all the creators of Kiss of the Spider Woman, and I think uh Hal, either Hal oh god, I'll never know if it was Hal or the producer, apparently.

[35:45] Tommy: One of them said um after they did some tryouts in Canada before in Toronto before Broadway, um once the show closed, they actually went back into rehearsal for two weeks.

[35:57] Jimi: Um and like that was even a baffling idea for me.

[36:02] Tommy: Um because of course you want to do that, all right.

[36:05] Jimi: It's closed, now let's play around with it a little more.

[36:08] Tommy: Um but I I understand I think that's br I think that's brilliant.

[36:12] Jimi: Yeah.

[36:13] Tommy: And i it's it would be it doesn't happen on Broadway because once you've reached Broadway, that's the top.

[36:18] Jimi: Right.

[36:18] Tommy: So it's not like okay, we've done Broadway, so now let's get ready for X.

[36:23] Jimi: Right.

[36:23] Tommy: Um it's that that is now the production kind of thing.

[36:28] Jimi: Sure.

[36:28] Tommy: And you would imagine that if it then closed uh to then reopen again, there's not really anywhere it could reopen, but you would rework it.

[36:36] Jimi: The closest thing though I can think about um is Hades Town in London to then Hades Town on Broadway.

[36:44] Tommy: Yeah.

[36:45] Jimi: And the deep, deep significant changes that occurred between those two productions.

[36:49] Tommy: Sure.

[36:50] Jimi: Um there were already as close to the finished article as you could you could kind of get.

[36:54] Tommy: Yeah.

[36:54] Jimi: Um and I think I think it's in many ways, Hades Town is really benefited from that again, readjustment.

[37:03] Tommy: Yeah.

[37:04] Jimi: Um so maybe you're right.

[37:06] Tommy: Maybe there is still merit in changing and and keeping it going and and continuing to be creative.

[37:13] Jimi: I guess I guess what I'm thinking more, and I'm just coming around to this thought, but I wonder if like Kiss of the Spider Woman was the model for what is becoming the contemporary musical theater revision model.

[37:26] Tommy: Um beyond just like have an idea, out of town tryouts, bring it back, but like getting into workshops more, you know, what other what other shows in the mid-90s or early 2000s that weren't like big Euro musicals premiered on the West End first?

[37:42] Jimi: As a means of experimenting, as a trialing, yeah.

[37:46] Tommy: As opposed to as a means of like, we don't think this is gonna play well on Broadway, so we're gonna hedge our bets and do it in London first.

[37:51] Jimi: Yeah.

[37:52] Tommy: Um you know, but I think I don't I don't know though, because I feel like um London in the nineties to London now, sure.

[38:00] Jimi: Like the West End's kind of crept up the rung a little bit, so it's a lot riskier to just try it out in London.

[38:06] Tommy: Right.

[38:07] Jimi: Um which is a shame.

[38:09] Tommy: Right.

[38:09] Jimi: Because I think like obviously it really helped.

[38:11] Tommy: Yeah.

[38:11] Jimi: Um with Spider Man.

[38:13] Tommy: I mean, like I wonder, you know, if if you're if you're an up and coming mayor with your suspenders on right now, you wanna be that intellectual, you know, powerhouse try-out of uh musical theater.

[38:25] Tommy: Um like when I lived in Chicago, it certainly was Chicago for a bunch of stuff um between SpongeBob and Adams Family.

[38:31] Jimi: Uh living in Denver, they tried out Frozen here first.

[38:34] Tommy: Absolutely.

[38:35] Jimi: Yeah.

[38:35] Tommy: And like you'd you'd bet your balls that like Disney was, you know, doing some uh demographic studies about the theater going audiences in Denver and to see how they would receive to the uh the idea of a Frozen musical.

[38:50] Jimi: Um and so interesting to see that played out as early as the nineties.

[38:54] Tommy: I've never encountered that before.

[38:57] Jimi: And to the creator's end, they'd state very clearly that the show probably wouldn't be what it is.

[39:03] Tommy: They would have I imagine they either would have capitulated sooner to what the critics wanted, or it never would have made it out of the trunk had they not had this kind of workshoppy start.

[39:15] Jimi: Yeah.

[39:16] Tommy: Well, I uh absolutely um it th in the talk uh Hal Prince kind of laments the fact that um uh that it was kind of noticing the change of what was happening in the nineties and the Euro musical coming in and um Broadway becoming much more of a uh commercial venture as opposed to an artistic venture.

[39:34] Jimi: Yeah.

[39:35] Tommy: Um and he was saying it it's such a shame that they have to travel to Canada to get away from that.

[39:42] Jimi: To do this.

[39:43] Tommy: Why isn't there something in the home of the American musical that will help support American musicals?

[39:48] Jimi: Um and he's totally right.

[39:50] Tommy: It makes no sense.

[39:51] Jimi: And uh actually it's quite poignant at one point.

[39:53] Tommy: He says, I don't doubt down the line, this'll happen and there'll be something out there that will, you know, we'll have our Toronto.

[39:59] Jimi: Yeah.

[39:59] Tommy: We still don't have our Toronto.

[40:01] Jimi: That's fair.

[40:01] Tommy: There have been you know, plenty that tried.

[40:03] Jimi: Like, what was what's the you know, is it the uh how did Avenue Q start?

[40:07] Tommy: Um the BMI Langham England Musical Theatre Workshop.

[40:11] Jimi: Um the BMI workshop uh uh is it's like an invitation, composers and lyricists like workshop um uh thing group.

[40:23] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[40:24] Jimi: Um but then it's still a workshop.

[40:27] Tommy: Sure.

[40:28] Jimi: Um, but like that's because workshops happen.

[40:31] Tommy: Right.

[40:32] Jimi: Workshops are a very much a necessary part.

[40:34] Tommy: Sure.

[40:36] Jimi: They like a bunch of composers and lyricists meet together to show off their stuff to each other.

[40:42] Tommy: Um now that I remembered the name of this, I can list off the grand list of things that started in this workshop, um including A Chorus Line, The Adams Family, Anastasia, Avenue Q, Beauty and the Beast, Best Little Whore House in Texas, Frozen, Grand Hotel, Grey Gardens, High Fidelity, The Life, Little Shop of Horrors, Raisin, Suical, Shrek, On and On, Sister Act, like you should look at this list.

[41:03] Jimi: Um But I that isn't that won't be the show, that won't be the productions.

[41:07] Tommy: There's no way you're right, you're right, you're right.

[41:09] Jimi: This is that will be ideas or songs or story time with the city.

[41:13] Tommy: And it what also might be is I've completed this show and I'm gonna show off to you.

[41:17] Jimi: Right.

[41:17] Tommy: And you know, the fact I was with you until I said Beauty and the Beast.

[41:20] Jimi: Yeah, no, you're fair, or Frozen, like you know, yeah, that's the thing is like busy theatrics aren't.

[41:25] Tommy: Yeah.

[41:25] Jimi: Um but so that but that's the thing, is there's still not there's not this like lovely idea of like yeah, we're out of town, we're trying something, this is fresh and new, I can't wait for this budget.

[41:34] Tommy: I wonder um I wish there was more because like uh the new musicals was out of a college, like good good performing arts colleges, you know, or even mediocre performing arts colleges seem like ripe for this kind of thing.

[41:47] Jimi: Absolutely beyond just an artist in residence.

[41:50] Tommy: But I wish there was a uh you know, a liaison group that would like hook up professional artists with workshops with you know regional colleges.

[41:59] Jimi: What we're missing is Hal Prince.

[42:00] Tommy: Do you know what I mean?

[42:01] Jimi: We just don't have people like that anymore.

[42:03] Tommy: Yeah.

[42:03] Jimi: We have commercial heads who are really, really keen.

[42:07] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[42:08] Jimi: Um and I again in this this amazing interview, uh, it's just so interesting just because of it's a kind of then and now thing.

[42:15] Tommy: Right.

[42:15] Jimi: Um, but I think it's even Garth Drabinsky, the producer, or it might have been Hal Prince.

[42:19] Tommy: I love that we keep getting that mixed up.

[42:21] Jimi: Um, but one of them talks about the fact that there are just no creative producers anymore.

[42:29] Tommy: Yeah.

[42:29] Jimi: Um, producers are producers with their business hats on, right? Um, and they're thinking more like investors, yeah, as opposed to thinking about the art.

[42:37] Tommy: Sure.

[42:38] Jimi: Um, and he talks about how inhibiting that is. And it is so right.

[42:42] Tommy: Yeah, it is so inhibiting, it's such a strain.

[42:46] Jimi: You know, we've seen it so many times with shows that we love, yeah. Um, that we know we'll never get a look in because no one will give the money. But I do want, I do wonder, you know, as much as like we've seen it rise and fall, but the fact that Be More Chill made it to Broadway, like maybe I know, but it made it to Broadway because it was sellable because of this whole meme culture.

[43:06] Tommy: Sure.

[43:07] Jimi: But it wasn't, it wasn't written to be a sellable meme musical, it became popular first. And like I think that speaks to the power of good art, right? And now we have like instead of needing a Hal Prince, the person who can break through the glass ceiling to the producing of Broadway, we just have the internet.

[43:26] Tommy: And if you know, like I bet you need more than that because it needs money.

[43:31] Jimi: Sure, but it's easy once you can point at the Tumblr files, you're gonna be like, look, look, those likes mean money, you know.

[43:38] Tommy: I know, but uh what Tumblr follower is gonna love Kiss of the Spider Woman?

[43:42] Jimi: Fair, fair. You know what I mean? Like we've got our own little group of people who love octet.

[43:46] Tommy: Right.

[43:47] Jimi: You know, yeah, and uh we, you know, our kind of like clad in Dave Molloy.

[43:51] Tommy: Yeah.

[43:51] Jimi: We are a very small camp, but we're never gonna go viral on Tumblr.

[43:54] Tommy: Yeah, and meanwhile, productions get more and more expensive to mount because you have these expectations for how big they're gonna be and what they're gonna look like.

[44:02] Jimi: Exactly.

[44:03] Tommy: So that's a very circle to score.

[44:05] Jimi: And kind of at every stage there's a selling out moment.

[44:07] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:07] Jimi: Um, and it's just a shame. It's really just a shame. Um, yeah, I don't know, let's make this plea now to philanthropists out there listening to this.

[44:18] Tommy: Please start up a new musical workshop initiative.

[44:22] Jimi: Yeah. Please. We'll do it. We'll do a feature on every show.

[44:26] Tommy: Yeah. Absolutely.

[44:28] Jimi: Dumb. I don't know. I just feel like because I think about it, I'm like, there's Kander and Ebb and Hal Prince working together with Terrence McNally, yeah, like on a new show in a workshop format.

[44:40] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:41] Jimi: Right. Like to me that's bad. I can't picture any creative team that we know at the moment that would do that.

[44:47] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:47] Jimi: And that, and you know, any producer that would go in kind of blind to that with a wacky idea.

[44:54] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:54] Jimi: Yeah. And that they know what they're doing. I don't see that like, you know, the teams that we see nowadays, people like Pasek and Paul.

[45:01] Tommy: Right.

[45:01] Jimi: I don't trust them to do something with their creative, uh, with their commercial hat.

[45:06] Tommy: I could right.

[45:07] Jimi: I could see them, well, I think that's carp before the horse. I think Pasek and Paul know that they live in a world where they need to sit down at that producer's audition with something commercial.

[45:17] Tommy: Because otherwise they're never gonna make it out the gate.

[45:20] Jimi: And so you've already, you've already stomped on a whole bunch of potential for, you know, weird or bizarre seeming artistic steps.

[45:30] Tommy: Um, before they're not going to be able to do that is like, well, if it's not them, then who else?

[45:34] Jimi: Sure.

[45:35] Tommy: Yeah, that's fair. I mean it's my second plea of the podcast. It keeps, it keeps circumple.

[45:40] Jimi: It keeps circling around, but you know who it is. It's our man, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

[45:44] Tommy: Like.

[45:45] Jimi: Well, yeah, he needs to do it, but he wouldn't.

[45:48] Tommy: He has.

[45:49] Jimi: You know, Hamilton is a ridiculous idea. I have this autobiography that I'm going to adapt into a popular, the most popular musical ever. And it's a 700-page dry, boring autobiography.

[46:04] Tommy: Um, will he do it again?

[46:06] Jimi: I think he's the only reason he's been able to do it is because he does it all by himself. He can get far enough without convincing anyone.

[46:10] Tommy: He can get far enough that he has something to convince other people.

[46:16] Jimi: Whereas Kander and Ebb need each other and someone like McNally, and even then sometimes some of their stuff doesn't do too well.

[46:24] Tommy: I will be surprised if Lin-Manuel does anything close to Hamilton again.

[46:34] Jimi: I'll be very surprised.

[46:35] Tommy: I oh yeah, no, I think I, I And I don't mean, I don't mean because he, no, uh, not because he wouldn't be good at it.

[46:43] Jimi: Yeah, I just think it's because he knows that that isn't the world that he will get the most out of.

[46:48] Tommy: No, no, no, I think he's got a curse of the Sondheim.

[46:51] Jimi: Like, do you think?

[46:53] Tommy: I absolutely, whether he explicitly knows it or not, but that's why Moana and like the new Mos Eisley cantina theme in Star Wars are the stuff we see Lin-Manuel Miranda in, because these are hedgeable bets.

[47:07] Jimi: Whereas like, you know, how many times, how many revisions did Bounce have before Sondheim was even mildly pleased with it? Not because Sondheim is bad at what he does, but because you've raised the expectations so astronomically high that anything else you do will pale in comparison to what you've done, and you don't get to apologize for it because we have a, uh, this like gentlemen's agreement that we can't apologize for theater beforehand, which is why workshops can't happen.

[47:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[47:36] Jimi: But then maybe that's it. Like I guess it is just the risk. In the same way that I would also argue about.

[47:46] Jimi: Sure.

[47:46] Tommy: Yeah.

[47:48] Jimi: And people signed on to it because he was Sondheim at that point. I wish, I don't know. I'm gonna stand in my soapbox just for a second longer.

[47:55] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[47:55] Jimi: Um, because I've worked in educational theater for so long, um, and one of the things I know and hold is a truth about educational theater is that the show will always be exactly as great as it can be. Um, and one of the reasons for that is you can pull all sorts of shit in educational theater.

[48:14] Tommy: Like, oh my god, the set fell over yesterday, and ten of the actors have gotten amnesia and forgotten all their lines, right?

[48:23] Jimi: Yeah. And you can have the director walk out before the show starts and be like, hello everyone, thank you so much for coming. As you may have heard, the set fell over yesterday, so we'll be performing it in front of a projected PowerPoint presentation that we put together ten minutes ago, and twelve of our actors will be holding scripts and standing downstage reading from music stands. But they're your children, so please clap for them.

[48:45] Tommy: Yeah, exactly. Enjoy Sucicle.

[48:48] Jimi: Um, like we can get away with that in educational theater because it's kids. But what we forget is that we never stop being kids. You know, we just get more and more confused until we, you know, decide we call ourselves adults. And like, if we lived in more of a culture where we could accept that, like we see it happen now more and more because people are bringing their phones to shows when, you know, Joe Iconis has to step out before Be More Chill and be like, hey, listen, uh, the sound system's screwed. So uh it's gonna be weird today. Um, like this happens all the time nowadays.

[49:21] Tommy: Yes, and people in it, you know, becomes the most like tweet.

[49:26] Jimi: Um, and I think if we just accepted that imperfection a little more, yeah, and as artists were more case, being like apologizing for our work.

[49:37] Tommy: Like I remember when I was in, when I was more of an actor in audition classes, and people would be like, don't apologize for your audition, you know, don't never apologize for your art.

[49:46] Jimi: And like, I think we could give ourselves some more leeway there to be able to say, like, this isn't what I want it to be yet. We're working on it, but we'd like to show you what we have.

[49:55] Tommy: Absolutely.

[49:56] Jimi: I don't think that's an apology. I think that's just, it's that's taking pride, I would say. I think it's, it's believing in your idea and believing in yourself, um, and knowing that this will, that will come somewhere.

[50:09] Tommy: I don't, I don't even think apology needs to come into it. Like it's, it's more just being like, well, maybe it's not apology, maybe it's like asking for forgiveness before the fact, right?

[50:21] Jimi: But like just being okay with that, yeah, yeah.

[50:24] Tommy: Just being okay with that, saying that like this is 80% of what I want to show you, and I'd love for you to see that, or 60% or 20%. But I want you to know what the 20% is gonna be.

[50:36] Jimi: Uh-huh.

[50:36] Tommy: As a me if you like that, that's great. Get excited about that. And then when you make the point when you can have the pie smell at the beginning and you can just walk in and have the whole experience be everything you want it to be, awesome.

[50:45] Jimi: Yeah, and until then, you can let people know that it's not where you want it to be.

[50:48] Tommy: Yeah, I love that. I really love that.

[50:51] Jimi: Um, but hey, to steer it back, yeah. Let's talk about Kiss of the Spider-Woman.

[50:56] Tommy: Um, yeah, that this is a bit isn't this interesting though, that this, you know, random old musical from the 90s is really, it's kind of landmarked a definite shift, you know, um, in the way that things are produced nowadays.

[51:13] Jimi: Yeah.

[51:13] Tommy: Uh, and I'm really glad that it caught the wave before and not after.

[51:17] Jimi: Right.

[51:18] Tommy: Um, I'm also really glad that uh the New York Times with their stunt uh didn't win.

[51:25] Jimi: Yeah.

[51:26] Tommy: And it still got made and it still was extremely successful.

[51:28] Jimi: Yep.

[51:29] Tommy: Um, take that New York.

[51:31] Jimi: I mean, don't take that. Some, you know, you can interview us whatever you want, but anyway.

[51:34] Tommy: Um, so uh let's delve into a bit about what I think makes this good, and I'm not sure if you think it's good.

[51:46] Jimi: Yeah, let's go.

[51:48] Tommy: All right, let's go.

[51:51] Jimi: If there's a war on, don't bring me the news.

[51:55] Tommy: Ask me to pull fights and I must refuse.

[52:00] Jimi: But if you want to get my attention, let's make love. If there's an earthquake, I will not attend.

[52:14] Tommy: If there's a plane, don't invite me my friends.

[52:19] Jimi: But if you want to keep me looking in your direction, let's make love, give it up, give me kisses, give it off, give it up, give me kisses, give me love.

[52:33] Tommy: Okay, so I get the feeling you don't like this.

[52:36] Jimi: So here's the thing. I'm, we started out Freds. I'm trying, it was cool, but it was all pretend.

[52:44] Tommy: Get out of here.

[52:45] Jimi: Um, sorry. I'm trying to like this show.

[52:50] Tommy: Okay.

[52:51] Jimi: I, or rather, I should say, I'm trying to not let my immediate gut reactions to shows entirely color my re-listening of them, which I think is a thing that past Tommy has done in the past and has destroyed my opinions of Andrew Lloyd Webber and some other people.

[53:06] Tommy: I would agree with that. Yes.

[53:07] Jimi: Um, my initial reaction to this show. I did not know Kiss of the Spider Woman well before we were preparing for this podcast.

[53:15] Tommy: Um.

[53:15] Jimi: And I found this show, like my first and second listen through like off putting and like kind of triggering in a not good way.

[53:30] Tommy: Um.

[53:30] Jimi: And it was a struggle to like get myself to re-listen to it. Very, very honestly and frankly. Um, it's grown on me a little more.

[53:40] Tommy: Yeah.

[53:40] Jimi: And like I think a lot of it has to do with the Molina-Valentin, a lot of it has to do with story stuff.

[53:46] Tommy: And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[53:48] Jimi: And the presentation and the choice to present this story in the way that they did when they did.

[53:56] Tommy: Okay.

[53:56] Jimi: If that makes sense.

[54:03] Tommy: Um, and kind of withheld you from listening to it again.

[54:06] Jimi: Yeah, this, I mean, there's a, uh, the TV trope's term for it is kill your gaze. Um, you know, this is, this is a trend across a lot of literature. Um, that especially, and like then I had the thought like, but wait a minute, Kander and Ebb and McNally, like I guess I don't really know, but like this seems like a pretty queer writing team, you know, and normally the kill your gaze trope is attributed to straight people writing gay characters.

[54:35] Tommy: Um.

[54:35] Jimi: Gay characters, queer characters get killed a lot in pieces of fiction. Sometimes because of their gayness, and that is their fatal flaw, whether they get AIDS or something, um, or sometimes it's just an accident, um, or you know, unrelated to their gayness, but it is a thing that keeps happening.

[54:52] Tommy: Um.

[54:52] Jimi: You can understand why it would strike the queer community as off putting if the characters they relate to keep getting tragically murdered or killed or whatever by their authors. Um, like, so then, so like that's part of my initial reaction, right?

[55:07] Tommy: Yeah.

[55:07] Jimi: Not knowing a lot of the history about it, not looking into any of the source material or anything like that. And so then I start delving on this journey. Um, and like there's a lot of, you know, and this is where it gets really difficult representing something that is historically accurate in a newer time.

[55:33] Tommy: Because I don't doubt, you know, the use of the word queer, they dropped the F bomb a couple times, um, and even just like the, you know, calling him fruit and things like that, and the absolute demeaning of a gay character here.

[55:47] Jimi: Um, I don't doubt that that was absolutely accurate for the time.

[55:51] Tommy: But then you're also making a choice to bring that back.

[55:55] Jimi: And I understand that this is, that this is a double edged sword, right? Because you don't want to forget our history. This is why we have things, this is like Laramie Project and Rent, and like, you know, there's a lot of queer fiction that's about like let's remember where we came from so we can continue to move forward.

[56:12] Tommy: But I don't, you know, from that perspective, we don't need to remember how people were terrible to this out gay man for us to keep moving forward, maybe is a question I have.

[56:22] Jimi: Like I want to hedge all these things because my opinion keeps changing on this.

[56:25] Tommy: Yeah, of course.

[56:26] Jimi: And I'm not entirely settled on it.

[56:27] Jimi: And then a lot of like, you know, uh uh explicit descriptions of torture and sadness, and you know, I I uh have this struggle a lot of times, you know. I I work in a moderately progressive school. We have lots of like great outreach for queer kids and stuff, um, and a lot of of a round of presentations around this sort of stuff. They'll have, you know, people older than me, adults talking about like how hard life used to be, um, or their cousin who, you know, lived in New York during the HIV epidemic and how scary it was for the time, and like sitting in the back and like watching these presentations happen, half my brain my brain is like, that's great, and we should share this stuff with our kids.

And half my brain is like these sophomores just want to get through math class. Like, you know, fire and brimstone and you know, being gay will be a struggle. Like it was the whole idea around the it's get it gets better project was like to kind of stamp some of that out. Um and so I'd I really have a visceral struggle with representing a sad, tragic gay story in the nineties, um without a little bit of nuance around it. And there's not a ton of nuance, I would say, around Molina's homosexuality. Um, he's a window dresser, you know, they capitalize on a lot of uh uh stereotypical queenie affectation, which I don't want to dismiss as being untrue or not a part of gay culture or this sort of stuff.

Like I don't want to devalue it in that direction. But then, you know, Valentine, like, is this a love story or is Valentine using his sex to get Melina to do what he wants him to do? Um if you haven't listened to the show yet, Valentine who wants Molina to like communicate some messages to the outside, somewhere between either he's in love with him or he bribes him with sex, and that part I would say is open to interpretation. Both from the from the novel through to the musical, like that's the point. Um I don't like that depiction. Um I always grow uncomfortable at the um uh uh conflagration of homosexuality and pedophilia. Um they leave it open as to whether or not Molina's in jail for having sex with a man or corrupting a minor, and like they do that a lot in literature, like conflating those two things, like all gays are pedophiles.

Um, which even if some gays are pedophiles, like bringing that story to the surface or adding that as a uh minor story prompt when it's really not terribly necessary, I take issue with. Um so I think that that it was a lot of the like visceral reaction I have, um, which is a little disassociated from some of the history of the show, um, which then gets a little more nuanced. Um, like certainly in this time, this is when, uh, certainly in America, but also in Argentina and other parts of the world, like gay men were becoming more visible, like this was a thing. Um I think the other thing that I've learned more about in studying some of this, like cultural understandings of homosexuality are different in ways that sometimes we don't think about.

Um, and I d certainly am not well versed in talking about this from an Argentinian perspective, but in some of the literature I've read about it, um, you know, there there is this connotation of machissimo and the the macho nature of being a man um in a lot of Latin countries, and the like homosexual acts are much more associated with receptive partners in Argentinian culture, at least according to what I read. Um, and so just because it's assumed this way, but just because Valentina's the top and Molina is the bottom, doesn't necessarily make Valentine gay by some readings of how this sort of stuff works around the time when this was being written. Um so that's one part of it. The other one, which I read far too much about and don't want to get into, um, too much at least, because it's a bit in the weeds, and there's enough academic literature enough about this that it's not settled.

[1:00:17] Um, but the way I'm gonna mispronounce his name. Um Manuel Puig. Yep. Um, the author of the original novel, the way this novel is presented, they often it's it's a very uh interesting in its presentation. The dialogue isn't uh attributed for a lot of it. [1:01:00] So you just see conversations back and forth and you kinda have to put together who is who, Molina and Valentine. Yep. But also uh uh they play kind of fast and loose with Molina's gender identity. Um and there's plenty of literature that analyzes this piece, not as if Molina is a gay man, but as if Molina is a s a straight transgendered woman. [1:01:30] And that is an interesting interpretation that I think we weren't progressive enough in the 90s to be able to put in a musical.

But there's also plenty of trans erasure in literature, and that gets me a little up in arms sometimes. [1:01:44] And then that puts a whole an entire like that completely recolours the show. If this is a woman having sex with a man in this machissimo culture, and like it it totally revamps the entire thing, which certainly wasn't Candor and Ebb and McNally's intent as written. [1:02:02] Like they've written it as a gay man. But so all of this threw me for a bit of a loop, and it's why I think I like I like listening to songs in this show as songs, but as the story as a whole, I still I still struggle with it.

[1:02:15] Tommy: Okay. I don't know. What do you think? I talked for too long.

[1:02:18] Jimi: No, that was great. Um so I disagree with everything you say.

[1:02:23] Tommy: Excellent.

[1:02:24] Jimi: Which is it's good because we've not sorry, I'm up from a make. We've not had that in a while. So that's a lot of fun.

[1:02:28] Tommy: Sure.

[1:02:29] Jimi: Um so uh my relationship with this show again is quite an interesting one.

[1:02:35] Tommy: I saw an amateur production of it.

[1:02:37] Jimi: Okay.

[1:02:37] Tommy: Um and I left at the interval.

[1:02:40] Jimi: Interesting.

[1:02:40] Tommy: Because it was a really poor production.

[1:02:42] Jimi: Okay.

[1:02:43] Tommy: Um there were some bits of it that were great, their set was fantastic.

[1:02:46] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:02:46] Tommy: Um, and their actor playing Molina was incredible.

[1:02:50] Jimi: Um but they just they didn't get it.

[1:02:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:02:53] Jimi: Okay.

[1:02:53] Tommy: They they pitched it completely wrong.

[1:02:55] Jimi: Sure.

[1:02:56] Tommy: Um, and at the time I didn't appreciate that, I didn't really understand that.

[1:02:59] Jimi: Right.

[1:02:59] Tommy: Um, but they just weren't communicating what was happening.

[1:03:02] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:03:03] Tommy: And everything just felt really ridiculous.

[1:03:05] Jimi: And then when Aurora would pop on, you're like, who are you?

[1:03:07] Tommy: Right.

[1:03:08] Jimi: Like, what's the hell is going on?

[1:03:10] Tommy: So it just kind of went over my head.

[1:03:12] Jimi: Sure.

[1:03:12] Tommy: Um and then afterwards, kind of listened to it more, kind of delved into the story a little bit more.

[1:03:22] Jimi: Um, a really significant point uh for me in this uh my sort of relationship with the show is um one of my best friends who's one of the best creative minds I know.

[1:03:34] Tommy: Um he uh it was at our the 25th anniversary of the theater company uh that I worked with.

[1:03:44] Jimi: Um and he came and did a performance um and gave a speech.

[1:03:49] Tommy: So it is his speech kind of started off talking about his history with uh the company and how it inspired him to then go on and train as an actor.

[1:03:58] Jimi: Sure.

[1:03:59] Tommy: Um and he uh did it uh as a preface to singing dressing them up because he now works in fashion.

[1:04:07] Jimi: Okay.

[1:04:08] Tommy: That was a genius segue.

[1:04:10] Jimi: Yeah, no, that's funny.

[1:04:11] Tommy: And I I came up to him and then I was like, what is that from?

[1:04:14] Jimi: Like that was it it felt like it was you um like singing this song from the heart.

[1:04:20] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:04:21] Jimi: Um and I was like, I just can't I can't believe that it's actually from a show.

[1:04:25] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:04:26] Jimi: Uh and he told me, Oh, it's from Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[1:04:29] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:04:29] Jimi: And I was like, I've seen that and it was awful.

[1:04:32] Tommy: There is no way that what you just did is from that show because it was so beautiful and narrative and you know, I mean, and interesting just from a character point of view.

[1:04:44] Jimi: I was like, that isn't the show that I saw.

[1:04:46] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:04:46] Jimi: And so that got me intrigued.

[1:04:48] Tommy: Sure.

[1:04:49] Jimi: Um, and so I started to delve into it a bit more.

[1:04:52] Tommy: Um, I've since come to fall in love with the character of Molina.

[1:04:56] Jimi: Okay.

[1:04:56] Tommy: Like a deep, deep love because I don't actually know of another character that exists like him.

[1:05:07] Jimi: Uh-huh.

[1:05:10] Tommy: So for me, what Molina is, um, and actually kind of what Valentina is, I think is the two parts of um Manuel Puig uh split up and put out into this novel.

[1:05:27] Jimi: Um so Manuel Puig is LGBT, yeah.

[1:05:30] Tommy: Um, as far as I know, gay um, but had a lot of effeminate traits um and uh was attracted to the the pretty things in life, sure.

[1:05:45] Jimi: Um he was also a Marxist and a leftist um and so had these two parts of himself, and I just find it really interesting that he's delved into both of these halves of himself um so much so and then brought them out as these two very much fully formed characters in a pretty explicit way, exactly.

[1:06:04] Tommy: And I love and I'm I don't love, I'm obsessed with the idea that he's writing the harmony between these two halves of himself, yeah.

[1:06:14] Jimi: Um the relationship that they have, yeah, and the relationship that certainly develops is incredible, I think.

[1:06:23] Tommy: Um because what I always like to look at, and especially in these things, it is is completely purposeful, these two have been placed together in this confined space for a reason.

[1:06:33] Jimi: Right.

[1:06:33] Tommy: Um, and I like to think about well, what do they have in common and what do they have in opposition to each other?

[1:06:39] Jimi: Sure.

[1:06:40] Tommy: And I think I mean this show plays around with duality a lot, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:06:44] Jimi: In many different guises.

[1:06:46] Tommy: Um, and I think these two are are really good kind of archetypes for this.

[1:06:49] Jimi: Um, so obviously we do have Molina as this um gay fantasist um who, like I say, is obsessed with the the pretty things in life, um and beauty and decadence, and uh appreciates that and takes that in, and it's so important to him.

[1:07:10] Tommy: Yeah, um we also have someone who's extremely passionate uh about um the revolution and the um prevalence of the left, yeah, um, and the uprising against this this horrible government, you know, and so the these are their two kind of key passions in life.

[1:07:33] Jimi: Um both of those passions have brought them into hell through two means and have since turned into shame, right?

[1:07:44] Tommy: Uh that the thing that they love and the thing that is key to them is the cause of their unhappiness, sure.

[1:07:54] Jimi: Um, and how that then presents itself with each other because it starts off, um Molina is very bold with his presentations, yeah.

[1:08:04] Tommy: Um and his descriptions of Aurora, yeah.

[1:08:08] Jimi: Um, and using it is very much like this is where I go, this is how I deal with this, um, and this is me.

[1:08:14] Tommy: Yeah, um, and uh Valentine is very much like this is ridiculous.

[1:08:22] Jimi: Uh what you're doing, you're ignoring the cause, you should be fighting, you know, this is important.

[1:08:28] Tommy: What you the thing that's happening is is so important.

[1:08:30] Jimi: Um and they both kind of bring up these huge bravado of each of each other, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:08:36] Tommy: Um but then over time they come to level out and appreciate the other one's uh passions for what they are, yeah.

[1:08:48] Jimi: Um, and then it circles right round perfectly into them re-falling in love with what they're passionate about, sure, um, and accepting it in a whole new light.

[1:09:00] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:09:01] Jimi: Uh and so for um Valentine, that really kind of comes into play um in the day after that, right?

[1:09:10] Tommy: Where he has this moment of like, no, this is why I'm doing it, it's a reaffirmation, right?

[1:09:15] Jimi: Um, and with Molina, uh it kind of comes into play um uh with oh, is it called anyone but him, I guess.

[1:09:24] Tommy: Uh anything for him, anything for him.

[1:09:27] Jimi: Um even uh the song that he sings to his mother as well when she's dying, you know, it's he's accepted what he has, he's accepted that he is a gay man, and actually that isn't something that he should take shame with anymore, it's it's just a part of him, right?

[1:09:46] Tommy: Um, and that he can embrace it.

[1:09:48] Jimi: Yeah, yeah.

[1:09:49] Tommy: So in terms of their relationship, yeah, that's what I love.

[1:09:54] Jimi: Um in terms of so the love aspect that they share.

[1:10:02] Tommy: Sure.

[1:10:03] Jimi: Um I I completely agree with you.

[1:10:05] Tommy: I think it is completely open to interpretation.

[1:10:07] Jimi: Right.

[1:10:08] Tommy: Um but my opinion is uh there's something, so there's a quote, hang on, there's a quote that uh Valentine says when he describes what it what it means to be a man.

[1:10:23] Jimi: Uh-huh.

[1:10:24] Tommy: And he says, um, not taking any crap is one thing, but that's not the most important. What really makes a man is a lot more. It has to do with not humiliating someone else with an order or a tip.

[1:10:37] Jimi: Even more, it's not letting the person next to you feel degraded, feel bad.

[1:10:42] Tommy: Sure.

[1:10:43] Jimi: Um, and so if Valentine was just doing it to manipulate Molina, that flies in the face of his morals.

[1:10:52] Tommy: And for someone who's so morally driven.

[1:10:54] Jimi: Well, does it fly in the face of his morals or fly in the face of his masculinity?

[1:10:58] Tommy: It flies in the face of his morals because Valentine doesn't mind the fact that Molina's gay.

[1:11:05] Jimi: Sure.

[1:11:05] Tommy: That's true.

[1:11:06] Jimi: Valentine is on the left. You know, he is he's supporting this counterculture.

[1:11:10] Tommy: What he doesn't like is the fact that Molina ignores the facts, his triviality and this grandeur that he just puts up.

[1:11:18] Jimi: He doesn't appreciate that. He thinks it's trivial, and he outwardly says that in the show.

[1:11:22] Tommy: No, and that's fair. And I did this morning, I actually tracked it as I was listening, and I'm pretty sure Valentine actually never uses any gendered terms to refer to Molina.

[1:11:35] Jimi: Um, other than um anything for him, yeah, unless he's where he talks about, yeah, like specifically.

[1:11:42] Tommy: But there's a lot of times where it seems like they almost got out of the all go out of the way to say person instead of man.

[1:11:47] Jimi: Um, which that tracks like that kind of respect there.

[1:11:52] Tommy: Absolutely. Um, so f I'm I'm very much in the camp that uh he did it because he comes, he has come to appreciate this man and all he can give him, like and it's interesting because um so another kind of significant relationship that comes up in the story is the relationship between Molina um and another straight man called Gabrielle who he knows in the outside world, and um there's a song called Gabriel's Letter.

[1:12:16] Jimi: Yeah, where Gabriel's like, it's so touching that you love me.

[1:12:21] Tommy: Yeah, um I'm sorry that I can't give it back to you.

[1:12:24] Jimi: Right.

[1:12:25] Tommy: Um and it's kind of like the perfect relationship. And then we find out at the end that actually it probably wasn't true.

[1:12:31] Jimi: Right.

[1:12:31] Tommy: Um and that Gabrielle actually did have a lot more issue with it.

[1:12:35] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:12:36] Tommy: Um so I think actually what we see is the relationship with Valentine as a contrast to that. Um and that actually their relationship is something more complex, is something deeper.

[1:12:50] Jimi: Um and I think Valentine does love him. I don't I don't think it's in the sense of like Valentina's gay or Valentina's bi or something like that. I think it's just human to human love.

[1:13:00] Tommy: Human to human, and the only thing that he can kind of give Molina that Molina would want is affection.

[1:13:06] Jimi: Sure. I do wonder. I watched Inside Out recently.

[1:13:11] Tommy: When was the last time you saw Inside Out?

[1:13:13] Jimi: More than happy very recently, yeah.

[1:13:15] Tommy: Do you know when they'd like venture into abstract thought?

[1:13:17] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:13:18] Tommy: Okay, we're going there. Um we might turn into polygons in a second.

[1:13:22] Jimi: Yeah, we can't stay there for long.

[1:13:24] Tommy: I agree with you. I think our differences of opinion come down to.

[1:13:33] Jimi: I'm still trying to put words around this, but something that I might term uh the limitations of metaphor.

[1:13:42] Tommy: You're you're on the you're on one side of the metaphor and I'm on the other side of the metaphor.

[1:13:50] Jimi: Right. I think I'm following. Like a lot of the things I struggle with are about literal queer representation, both in the time period this was set and the time period it came out, interpreting these characters as real people doing things in society.

[1:13:51] Tommy: A lot of the things you like come from inside an authorial brain as a metaphorical representation of an inner struggle that a singular human being might have for.

[1:14:21] Jimi: Like that's what you started with.

[1:14:23] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely. And that is a key part of it.

[1:14:27] Jimi: Right. Um just because as from an artistic standpoint, yeah, it's not true. And I don't mean to say that, like, those that duality inside a single person might not surface itself as a singularity between two people. Like, I don't mean to say like that, that's a ridiculous thing. But that I I like that. And the things that I struggle with are the only way that are a result of the only way that that story could be communicated in this creation of art using humans as a metaphor, like as humans as metaphor for thought.

[1:15:04] Tommy: Maybe that's a way to put it. Um because we're not good at separating the difference between the thoughts we have in our brain and us as a, you know, corporeal human figure. And so the only way we can experience art about thought is by representing that through humans and humanality and things like that. Like it's really hard, it's the same thing I'm struggling right with right now. It's really hard to talk about our thoughts in an accurate way without personifying them or uh metaphoralizing them through metaphoralizing word for the podcast. That was great. Without like putting this extra layer on top, because we don't know how to do it, because our language and our being just doesn't have the capability to do that sort of stuff.

[1:15:51] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:15:51] Tommy: But the added layer that we need to communicate this story adds in some intricacies and nuances that are, for whatever reason, mildly triggering or uh off-putting to me. Reading them as overt things, not reading them as the metaphor they're intended to be.

[1:16:16] Jimi: Does that make any sense?

[1:16:18] Tommy: So it absolutely does. And I think so, well, just to take that point, um, if we look at these people as real people, yeah, um, I still don't see the issue. In fact, um so with Molina and this representation of you know, what many could say is a stereotypical effeminate gay, like you say he's a window dresser.

[1:16:38] Jimi: Yeah, um what we know as um out and proud queer characters are that those people very much exist.

[1:16:46] Tommy: Yeah, and those people, you know, who a lot of people say perpetrate the stereotype, right? Quote unquote, yeah.

[1:16:52] Jimi: Yeah, uh, are living happy normal lives very comfortable in their own skin.

[1:16:57] Tommy: Um, and I think that's Molina.

[1:16:59] Jimi: Yeah, fair. There's nothing wrong uh with liking pretty things. Rivers Wainwright has an incredible song about it.

[1:17:06] Tommy: Um, and it's it's so true, you know.

[1:17:09] Jimi: And what Molina does is he fully embraces that in a completely unashamed way, and that was why dressing them up hooked me.

[1:17:18] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:17:19] Jimi: Because my friend took it in and embodied it. And he's not he's not hyper feminine, but he has a deep affinity with the feminine. Um it exemplifies that better than I think any other musical theater song that discusses a similar thing, yeah.

[1:17:38] Tommy: Better than Angel, yeah, and Rent, you know, yeah.

[1:17:41] Jimi: Um and I just think so. Melina then as a character feels so real and so undiscussed.

[1:17:53] Tommy: Sure.

[1:17:54] Jimi: Um and I I don't think you can take out of the time period. I really don't, yeah.

[1:17:59] Tommy: Um, because first of all, obviously the character was created right in I think the 70s.

[1:18:04] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:18:05] Tommy: Um, yeah.

[1:18:08] Jimi: Um, and so you know, there's there's certain things that were happening then that people couldn't necessarily fathom.

[1:18:14] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:18:15] Jimi: And um a lot of the stuff to do with the gender expression.

[1:18:18] Tommy: Yeah, no, totally.

[1:18:20] Jimi: That you know, that it just it just wasn't in the vernacular yet, really.

[1:18:24] Tommy: No, I mean oh maybe only even in the past half a decade has it even been mildly in pop vernacular.

[1:18:31] Jimi: Um and certainly to a point where you can have like a really healthy discussion about it.

[1:18:37] Tommy: Right, you know, yeah without uh without have it becoming like yeah, or pulling out a dictionary and being like, no, no, no, you mean this, not that.

[1:18:44] Jimi: Yes, exactly. Pull like you reach you reach to the white door and pull down the gender bred person and they're like, okay, we gotta we gotta learn for a second.

[1:18:50] Tommy: Absolutely. Um but it was interesting, so you said um at one point, like uh you don't think that that was ever candor and ebb's intention.

[1:19:00] Jimi: Yes.

[1:19:00] Tommy: They were never like to them, Molina is a gay man, a cis gay man.

[1:19:05] Jimi: Um I would stand by that.

[1:19:08] Tommy: I wouldn't uh because of the song uh she's a woman.

[1:19:14] Jimi: Interesting, um, which ends with the lines um uh how lucky can you be, so lucky you will be, and I wish that she were me, that woman.

[1:19:24] Tommy: Um he's talking about Aurora, yeah, um, but the whole the whole conceit of this show is that um when Molina is talking about Aurora, he is talking about the person that he wants to be.

[1:19:37] Jimi: Um, and you know, in in uh She's a Woman, yeah, it's a beautiful song about again loving all of these pretty things, the decadence.

[1:19:47] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:19:48] Jimi: Um and how he he knows he will never get there as a man because of this expectation that's been put on him.

[1:19:56] Tommy: Sure.

[1:19:56] Jimi: Um what is kind of heartbreaking in a way is that only in this hellhole is Molina able to exist as the person he wants to be.

[1:20:09] Tommy: Yeah, no, because out in the real world he wouldn't be allowed.

[1:20:13] Jimi: Right.

[1:20:13] Tommy: But in here, he's found someone who accepts him for who he is, right?

[1:20:20] Jimi: Um eventually, yeah, and uh embraces that world. Now I think that's why he falls in love with Valentine because Valentine I think sees him as a person.

[1:20:32] Tommy: Yeah, sure.

[1:20:33] Jimi: Not as uh gay man.

[1:20:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:20:36] Jimi: Um and I the I want to just jump on the point as well. Uh we talked about what was the trope? Kill your gaze.

[1:20:43] Tommy: Kill your gaze.

[1:20:44] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:20:45] Tommy: Kill your gaze.

[1:20:47] Jimi: That's so funny.

[1:20:49] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:20:50] Jimi: We're not killing our gaze here, I don't think.

[1:20:52] Tommy: Sure, because only in the movies, right.

[1:20:56] Jimi: Yeah, he he gets killed.

[1:20:58] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:20:59] Jimi: But kill your gaze. I am wrong. I've misquoted this. I wanted to Google it.

[1:21:03] Tommy: Bury your gaze, which is extra.

[1:21:05] Jimi: Bury your gaze. Okay, cool. Well, correct me if I'm wrong. Bury your gaze is uh you kill the gay character whilst they're still gay and oppressed.

[1:21:16] Tommy: Uh basically they're that that queer queer folk are more expendable.

[1:21:21] Jimi: It's a you know, it's a trope, not intentionally, but because queer characters are often secondary, so they're often killed off.

[1:21:27] Tommy: Right.

[1:21:28] Jimi: And they don't they're never fleshed out, they never they won't reach the end of their story.

[1:21:32] Tommy: Do you know what I mean?

[1:21:33] Jimi: Sure.

[1:21:33] Tommy: And the story that will be told is this, you know, beautiful representational thing. I think even it it's worth arguing, even in Rent, yeah.

[1:21:40] Jimi: I don't think it happens as well as it does here.

[1:21:42] Tommy: That's fair.

[1:21:43] Jimi: Because actually, what I would like to argue is that Molina is done.

[1:21:49] Tommy: Yeah, he gets his redemption, or not redemption wrong word, but he gets his heaven, he gets his thing.

[1:21:54] Jimi: He he basically like escape has achieved what he wanted.

[1:21:58] Tommy: So by the end, yeah, he stands up for himself, he stands up for the person that he loves.

[1:22:03] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:22:04] Tommy: Every single scene that he talks about with Aurora leads to this point.

[1:22:08] Jimi: Sure.

[1:22:08] Tommy: You know, he has achieved everything that he wants, and then we see him as the the one. You know, he is it it is his name was Molina.

[1:22:19] Jimi: Yeah, you know, he's revered and he's in the grandeur, and the Aurora is watching him instead of him watching Aurora, he's taking control um of this world that he's never been in control of.

[1:22:31] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:22:31] Jimi: Um to me that's like wow.

[1:22:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:22:36] Jimi: And if he stayed alive, that would have been taken away from him.

[1:22:39] Tommy: Right.

[1:22:40] Jimi: You know?

[1:22:41] Tommy: And his heart w when he died, he did something like that heroic and for the man that he loved.

[1:22:47] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:22:48] Tommy: And was able to just kind of achieve everything that he wanted to achieve.

[1:22:56] Jimi: He makes peace with his mother.

[1:22:57] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:22:57] Jimi: He makes peace with Gabrielle. Like all of these things, you know, happen for him.

[1:23:02] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:03] Jimi: Um, and in the end you're so celebratory of Molina, you don't feel sorry for him necessarily.

[1:23:08] Tommy: It's not a good idea.

[1:23:09] Jimi: Because he's so happy ending.

[1:23:10] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:11] Jimi: It's not it's not the kind of sarcastic, sardonic end that like nowadays is in Chicago.

[1:23:16] Tommy: Like only in the movies is jubilation.

[1:23:19] Jimi: Exactly.

[1:23:19] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:20] Jimi: And it's that but it's it's and it's it's so I'm so glad you brought that up because the same with cabaret as well.

[1:23:25] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:25] Jimi: It ends on this really sour you know, sting in the tail note that no one's happy here.

[1:23:31] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:31] Jimi: Well, actually, what is found is that humanity can come together, and through that you can find peace and you can find happiness.

[1:23:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:41] Jimi: Um, through these relationships.

[1:23:43] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:44] Jimi: Uh I think the meta realization, and like I mentioned this at the beginning, like my opinion on this is still changing.

[1:23:53] Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:23:54] Jimi: I in the I think it's maybe shown through a little bit implicitly on this podcast, but I would love to make it a little more explicit. Like, I'm trying to be better about about not letting my gut reaction get in the way of continuing to appreciate a show.

[1:24:09] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely.

[1:24:10] Jimi: Um because I I have seen it do that in the past.

[1:24:12] Tommy: Um and it has made me miss some nuance and some stuff.

[1:24:16] Jimi: It's why you'll never like cats.

[1:24:18] Tommy: It's why I'll never like cats, honestly, frankly.

[1:24:20] Jimi: And actually, that is a good point.

[1:24:21] Tommy: Yeah, you want to do that.

[1:24:22] Jimi: As much as it's a joke, it's also why I'll never like cats.

[1:24:25] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:24:25] Jimi: Um, and also I don't doubt that with more study and nuance that I probably still won't like cats.

[1:24:30] Tommy: You probably won't like cats, yes.

[1:24:31] Jimi: But why I initially didn't like cats was because of that.

[1:24:36] Tommy: But in a like uh metacognitive analysis, I find this interesting because you know, we live in the world where we tear apart musical theater, like where we talk about this sort of stuff, right?

[1:24:49] Jimi: Yeah. And we talk about how that's not the art form isn't built for that. It's a first impression art form. Um and so I'm really curious then about the side of me that sometimes reacts poorly to pieces, and what it is that causes that that then might be turned around by deeper analysis.

[1:25:11] Tommy: Yeah. Um I don't know what it is, but even just like acknowledging out it out loud is interesting to me.

[1:25:18] Jimi: Well, that's I mean, it that's the thing, is like you and it it is a really interesting point, and I wonder if at any point we'll be able to talk about it in a bit more depth, because you're so right. Your night at the theater dictates your opinions about the whole piece of art. That's all you got. It could be literally the person sitting on their phone in front of you that ruins your whole night. Your dinner was terrible. You gotta go pee like Yeah, you ha you missed a crucial point because you had to go pee. Um it was raining on the walk home and you kind of forgot the person in front of wearing a tall hat. Like these tiny little things can completely change your whole perspective on a whole work of art.

[1:25:59] Tommy: But also then, like, what was it the first time I listened to cats that was like, uh, you know, what was it the first time I listened to this show that was like, uh and like then so let's say no one would do this, but do the thought experiment. You're rewriting Kiss of the Spider Woman for me.

[1:26:17] Jimi: Yeah. Who initially had that poor reaction to it. Uh-huh. Right. What are the things you do to fix that? Like I think that's an interesting authorial exercise. They might not be the right choices for the show as a whole, but might lead to one or two things to bring the meas of the world into it a bit more because I'm selling it.

[1:26:45] Tommy: But then what I would say is but but because I disagreed with you on every point.

[1:26:48] Jimi: Sure.

[1:26:49] Tommy: The things that I would need to change would then fly in the face of what I appreciate and adore about the show.

[1:26:53] Jimi: Right. Well, the question would be can I make a list with one or two bullet points that you agree with? And then those are things that would be worthwhile putting in the show, you know?

[1:27:04] Tommy: Yeah, I'd be intrigued. Um I think I think what's important is I think you need to see it.

[1:27:08] Jimi: Yes. Um, which is interesting because obviously when I saw it, I hated it. And I hadn't seen it at all first. And I will say the thing that has brought me more around to it is finding the old promo footage and the Tony's awards stuff and actually seeing people perform this thing. I think that's the thing. It's because the book and and the the whole lyric uh of of of the whole show um is really well done. And I actually think Brent Carver gives an incredible uh performance in the cast recording.

[1:27:34] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:27:35] Jimi: Um and I think it through that uh uh you need to you can appreciate Molina for who he is because he gets embodied and you see a human. Uh-huh. Yeah you know you see two humans you see Valentine as well and you see their relationship because that's the thing is is obviously there's so much more to it right than just some songs.

[1:27:57] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:27:57] Jimi: And actually I think this is one of the musicals that kind of suffers in its cast recording because you miss a lot of the scenes. But we had this as a minor point but we should put it in this is one of the few original Broadway shows with two original well do you call them two original Broadway cast recordings? What do you want to do the first one technically isn't a Broadway cast recording the first one's a West East recording.

[1:28:20] Tommy: Fair fair but they move the whole cast over yes so um i it's called the the original Broadway cast and then the new Broadway cast which is a fascinating term I'm sure they had to spend a lot of time in a meeting room with a bunch of post-it notes playing like what do we call this um so yeah so we've got the new broader cast with um Michelle Williams and uh Brian Stokes Mitchell yeah um and uh I can't remember the name of the guy who plays Molina uh and it is it's very different because they include some of the scenes they include some dialogue and actually um the that was the first recording I listened to which I'm grateful for I do well done good I do think if you're coming towards the show it is worth listening to the Cheetah Rivera one but listen to it.

[1:29:01] Jimi: It really is um the one with is worth it. I the thing that I love most about um the cheater Rivera well there's a couple of things I really love like Brent Carver's performance is sensational. It's absolutely so good and to me that is m that's my Molina kind of thing. Um but also as much as I'm not the biggest fan of Tutor I Vera's voice, um, it's I I think the key is different. I think the key is different for her.

[1:29:17] Tommy: I think the key is different for her.

[1:29:27] Jimi: And it seems better. It's a bit lower, it's a bit more minor. Yeah and it feels darker. Yeah, she like I get it. I get why it's her. A lot of the reviews kinda d take some digs at Cheetah Rivera, which I don't like. Um, but I get why she's this is this is for her.

[1:29:44] Tommy: Yeah, oh a hundred percent. And when they were writing it, I think Terrence McNally was like, that's who I wanted. Of course. You know, that's who I saw in the role because it's a vamp. It's it's you know, it needs that. Um it makes me yeah, definitely I I will say this show made me understand the visit a lot more.

[1:30:02] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:30:03] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:30:04] Jimi: But anyway, listen to both recordings. They're designed.

[1:30:06] Tommy: Yes.

[1:30:07] Jimi: Yeah, uh absolutely they're um I think it's on YouTube. I think the new one's on YouTube, it's not on Spotify. The the old one I only found on Amazon.

[1:30:14] Tommy: Um, it's on Spotify for me.

[1:30:18] Jimi: The world I just Yeah, I know. Licensing, who knows? Do you know there's a typo in Marily We Roll Along across all published versions?

[1:30:27] Tommy: Oh.

[1:30:28] Jimi: Yeah, the song the the revival cast recording, this song called The Blob.

[1:30:33] Tommy: Yes.

[1:30:33] Jimi: In an episode. It's called the Bulb. It's po it's called the blog.

[1:30:38] Tommy: No, really.

[1:30:39] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:30:39] Tommy: That's awful.

[1:30:41] Jimi: Yeah. That's so bad. Yeah. I don't know if they fixed it, but Yeah. But yes, to to to put a full stop on this, I hope uh I've I don't know, tried to shine a a bit of light into the shady corners.

[1:30:56] Tommy: I think you have and like and as I said going into it, like th that was my gut reaction, which I definitely wanted to fully, you know, lay open um in case other people end up there. But I'm trying to acknowledge more that sometimes my gut reaction that I c you know, that you can change your mind. Um isn't it interesting though?

[1:31:19] Jimi: I went through the same thing.

[1:31:20] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:31:21] Jimi: Yeah. I was saying quite preachy, sex monies. But no, I like I I very much I really didn't get it, I didn't enjoy it. Yeah. And I was disappointed because I love Khandraneb. Right. And this is my first editing of this. And then it just takes a framing of it, a reframing to make it click. Um it is such a question then, like, what is what is it we're doing here? Or are we moving? I had this conversation, I saw uh the latest Star Wars over Winterbreak. Um yeah, and I was lamenting that, like, because I think this is certainly happened with the Star Wars and absolutely has happened with some of the like mega Marvel Cinematic Universe stuff. Um, but I think it's happening with more and more of these m mega blockbuster mus movies.

Um is like once you leave the movie theater, you gotta Google a bunch of shit because you're like, why didn't I understand that? Why would what was this a call? Like clearly this was a reference to something, because I speak movie, but I'm not smart enough to understand what it was. So what was this a callback to like and you need like a companion's guide to view your movie? And like I don't know. I I hate that movies are going in that direction. I think musicals have been built in a direction where you're where that has not been the case, but certainly we've been moving closer. But still, musical, you know, Great Comet does it, like as a revision, you're like, oh, you don't understand the characters. Alright, we're gonna take like 15 minutes to say the characters' names a whole bunch, because that's gonna make the experience better. Um without a program and understand the show.

[1:32:49] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:32:49] Tommy: Um but like the conceit that this is a gut reaction art form, yet I find myself not like trying to tell myself not to trust my gut reaction. I don't know. It's an interesting revelation that I've had having done this for a decade now.

[1:33:07] Jimi: Yeah, it's a fun thing to challenge, I think. It's it's funny because I'm very easily pleased. Um and I will accept that about myself. Um but I also think it's a good thing because I remain very open-minded. And um it it really like uh for a musical, and obviously people listening to this podcast will know this about me. Um it takes a lot for me to really not like something.

[1:33:27] Tommy: Sure.

[1:33:28] Jimi: Um, and it needs to really get me personally.

[1:33:31] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:33:31] Jimi: Um because I will look and look and look for the merit. Yeah. Uh until I find it. And sometimes it it won't be there, and I'll be angry and disappointed.

[1:33:41] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[1:33:42] Jimi: Um, but it didn't take me long to find the merit in this show.

[1:33:46] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:33:47] Jimi: And it's taken me a couple minutes, but I do I think I'm gonna get there. There's more to it, I think.

[1:33:52] Tommy: I think that's it. It's just there's there's there's always more to it. Do you know what we need? A revival.

[1:33:56] Jimi: I'm ready for it.

[1:34:00] Tommy: I kind of am. I think I it wouldn't go out of place.

[1:34:03] Jimi: Yeah, it would I think it would be I think it would be a canny move right now to do a revival of Kiss of the Spider Woman. I think it's got a lot going for it, but an interesting take on a lot of contemporary themes. Could do with some some gentle updating and you know, modernization, maybe here and there. But it's uh really intelligently written, yeah, um, I think nuanced uh sure piece um about a lot of get contemporary issues that we are discussing a lot more today.

[1:34:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:34:41] Jimi: That may have been completely new in the nineties.

[1:34:44] Tommy: Right. Well, not completely new, but for the new topics of theatre gold gore. Um was completely new, but now we're we're having more and more discussion. So yeah, I'm I'm ready for it. And shall we do it? You know, I think we can only do it under one circumstance.

[1:35:01] Tommy: Okay.

[1:35:02] Jimi: We uh get Cheetah Rivera back.

[1:35:05] Tommy: She's she'll be sh by the way she absolutely would be fine.

[1:35:10] Jimi: She'd be totally down with it.

[1:35:11] Tommy: She'd be totally fine, she'd be great. The kit the l the kicks.

[1:35:14] Jimi: Yeah. Or at the very least. At the very least, let's do an encore and she to Rivera can narrate it.

[1:35:19] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:35:21] Jimi: Yeah, why the hell not? That'd be a ton of fun. Tweet tweet. Go look up who does that people and tweet at them. Tell them we sent it. I think so. We're totally ready for it.

[1:35:30] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:35:30] Jimi: Like, yeah. I mean, if we yeah, I'm ready. Okay, to it. Producer, all the producers that listen to this.

[1:35:37] Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

[1:35:38] Jimi: I'm excited to made a good I think that's a good call. I th I clearly we're the people dressed. Hey, we've predicted a lot. I think that's confirmation bias, but that's fine.

[1:35:51] Tommy: His name was only That was Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[1:36:36] Jimi: Ugh, we've all been kissed. And we're gonna die now.

[1:36:38] Tommy: Oh, oh well. That’s been a good run.

[1:36:41] Jimi: Exactly. That was a good one to end on. I really enjoyed it. So hey.

[1:36:44] Tommy: We've got a quiz question.

[1:36:47] Jimi: I I see the feature. She obviously didn't kiss us hard enough because we're still going.

[1:36:53] Tommy: She didn't use tongue.

[1:36:54] Jimi: So that's what it is. That's fine, it's cheater of exactly. Well, I've got a quiz question that's going to tell us what we're going to be doing next time. Um and I am particularly excited about it.

[1:37:03] Tommy: Tommy too.

[1:37:05] Jimi: Yes, okay. Are you ready?

[1:37:07] Tommy: Always.

[1:37:08] Jimi: So the definitive version inverticomas of this infinitely revised operetta premiered in Glasgow. In 1988, the year before I was born. Coincidence. Probably. It has since been revised multiple times. What show?

[1:37:30] Tommy: Hey. If you want to get in touch with us and let us know what you think it is, you can. Our show Twitter is at Jim and Tomic, or you can hop on over to Reddit and join in the discussion all about Kiss of the Spider Woman and all of the other shows that we've been doing recently. Over there, the links are in the show notes in your podcatcher right now, or you can go and visit Jim and Tomic.com. And while you're there, you can check out our Patreon if you'd like to financially support the show. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of our current Patreons. We adore all of you. And as always, reviews on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere are super helpful. And when Jimmy and I get down in the dumps, we read them to make us feel better about our lives. Yay. But hey, most of all, it really helps us out when you tell all your pals about this show. We don't advertise, we rely on you. So uh yeah. Go tell people. That's all we have. Thank you for listening.

[1:38:25] Jimi: Cheers, Jimmy.

[1:38:26] Tommy: Cheers, Tommy.

[1:38:42] Jimi: I see you have a spider plant behind you.

[1:38:45] Tommy: I do. Uh this is Dare to Kiss It.