Chris Lee’s imaginative design work makes the lighting for Signature Theater’s Kiss of the Spider Woman a dynamic character in its own right in this slick and sexy production. Beams serve as bars for the jail center that is the work’s centerpiece. Hues of red, silver and blue add dramatic punch to various scenes. Flashlights perched on the top add a certain spookiness to a parade of creepy male nurses in the "Morphine Tango". Spotlights seek out ferreting prisoners, and strobe lighting both obscures and highlights the torture they're put through. Most of all, it is lighting that conveys the massive web in which the Spider Woman, a mythic figure never absent from the play's proceeding, entraps her prey.

That Spider Woman is played by Natascia Diaz, and serves as a figment of prisoner Molina's imagination and a metaphor for death (with the hint of something even more sinister) as the work progresses. Diaz was last seen in the D.C.-area in a fiery turn as Anita in Wolf Trap's West Side Story, which coincidentally is one of the roles for which her predecessor in the Broadway production, Chita Rivera, is most well known. Clad in an array of slinky black dresses, her rich, slightly smoky alto and strutting, percussive movements accounts for much of the glimmer and sultriness of this revival, even if she doesn't hit every low note the demanding score requires. The Spider Woman is the star of most of the show's best production numbers, and Karma Camp's choreography is haunted by the spirit of the tango and the influence of Bob Fosse, with its amoebas of bare-chested men and angular kicks and tosses.

The meat of the story is between cell mates Molina (Hunter Foster), a gay window dresser and Valentin (Will Chase), an unyielding political prisoner. Kiss Of The Spider Woman really succeeds in conveying how Molina's love for Valentin inspires him to evolve, even if the progression of the pair's relationship comes a bit too abruptly to seem wholly credible. Valentin is much more of a concept-revolutionary character than the more fleshed out Molina (it feels like we're watching Che from Evita at times), and his anthems of change such as the third "Over The Wall" reprise don't reach the same stirring crescendo as the "Do You Hear The People Sing?"s or even the "A New Argentina"s of musicals past.

But it's not a major issue for the show (and Chase's Valentin offers enough operatic heat to overcome any vague lyrics), which, like Molina himself, isn't all that interested in Valentin's cause. Like Kander & Ebb's Chicago, Spider Woman allows show business and the movies to take on a poignant meaning in the lives of characters obsessed with its glamour and fame. But while Chicago offered a much more cynical assessment, for Molina (played with a wry, protective sense of humor by ChaseFoster), it's a justified escape from a life that's offered little romantic reward.

Spider Woman as a work hasn't gotten a lot of attention since its successful Broadway debut in 1993, making it a smart choice to kick off Signature's Kander & Ebb Celebration, which has even more obscure gems on the way for the future. Eric Shaeffer's production, from its electric trio of lead performers to its novel, clattering jail house set, gives new splash to an already impressive work. Kander & Ebb's songs in Spider Woman may not have the staying power of a "Cabaret" or an "All That Jazz", but the infectious "Where You Are" stays with you and the plaintive "Dear One" features soaring soprano harmonies. It's a pleasure and a privilege to discover (or rediscover) a nevertheless tantalizing offering from the composers' later career.

Kiss of the Spider Woman runs through April 20 at Signature Theater. Tickets are available online.

Photo courtesy Signature Theater