Yet Another ‘Spider Woman’ Spinoff : Stage: Critics in London have mostly praised the musical based on Manuel Puig’s novel.

“Kiss of the Spider Woman,” the Manuel Puig novel that became a play and then an Oscar-winning film, has been rewoven into yet another form, this time a stage musical.

And if opening week reviews are a reliable guide, the new incarnation, despite its improbable juxtaposition of show tunes and brutal Latin American prison setting, may prove as successful as its predecessors.

Critics in London, where the musical premiered last week, have mostly praised the production, though a few reviewers offset the glowing comments with so-so, but still respectful, notices, along with a couple of pans.

The Mail on Sunday called it “the best musical in a decade,” while the Observer declared it “a triumph” and gushed that within the musical context of “Kiss,” “imprisonment is released as an emotional and concrete metaphor in a way neither book nor movie can begin to suggest.”

The Sunday Telegraph, however, likened the reworking of the novel into a musical to “watching a submarine being rebuilt as an ocean liner.” But the paper nonetheless reported there is still “plenty to admire.”

Chita Rivera, who won acclaim in “West Side Story” all those years ago, was again heaped with accolades for her dual role as the Spider Woman and the glamorous film star, Aurora. Also garnering high marks from the critics was the elaborate set design by Jerome Sirlin.

Garth Drabinsky, the Canadian producer of the show, said he was gratified by the “extraordinary” reviews in Britain’s “important papers,” but was not surprised by the additional mixed notices (a headline over the review in the Independent: “Surreal spider traps but fails to entrance”).

“In the case of any groundbreaking musical, where you’re pushing the medium to a new level, where you’re challenging an audience, you’ll always have some debate,” he said in a phone interview from his Toronto office.

As in the book, play and film, “Kiss of the Spider Woman--The Musical” explores the relationship between prisoners Molina, a gay window dresser in jail on morals charges, and Valentin, a political revolutionary arrested for crimes against the state. Thrown together in a cell, their relationship evolves from mutual hostility to understanding and respect.

And all the while, as they suffer through the horrors of their barbaric surroundings, Molina entrances his cellmate with vivid fantasies and lush tales of 1940s Hollywood movie musicals.

Molina is played by Canadian actor Brent Carver while American Anthony Crivello plays Valentin. Behind the scenes is a creative team that one reviewer said “reads like a Who’s Who of the American theater.”

Created by the songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb (“Cabaret,” “New York, New York” and the revue “The World Goes ‘Round,” currently at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood), the musical’s book is by Terrence McNally (“The Lisbon Traviata”) and is directed by Harold Prince, who has directed innumerable hits.

After Argentine writer Puig published his novel in 1976, he rewrote it for the stage. The play became a film, which won an Oscar for William Hurt’s Molina.

The musical nearly died a fast death after it was first mounted in Purchase, N.Y., in 1990, where the producers’ intent was to keep it from the limelight and reviewers. But New York critics reviewed it anyway and panned it. A harsh notice from the New York Times was blamed for the show’s collapse.

“Kiss” was granted a second chance, however, when Drabinsky, who in 10 years built the Cineplex Odeon movie theater chain into the second largest in North America only to be ousted by his board in 1989, stepped in to help salvage it. Offering encouragement to the creators after the first version folded, he agreed to produce a second attempt when he saw the changes being made in the show.

“I was always intrigued by the material,” he said. Drabinsky had previously been involved with the film, having helped nail down financing for the movie by acquiring the Canadian distribution rights.

The production was overhauled and the story line restructured. The writers dropped the idea, which had been the thrust of the Purchase version, of telling separate, but concurrent, stories about Molina and Valentin, on the one hand, and Aurora on the other. Audiences had seemed to be confused by the parallel stories.

As a result, the actions of all the characters are now integrated. Kander and Ebb also dropped their original notion of having Molina and Valentin sing only when they were in their own fantasies. Kander, who has called that idea “disastrous,” said the musical restructuring enabled the composers to increase the production’s score by 50%.

The revised version of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” opened in Toronto in June, to positive reviews, and then moved to London this month amid heavy promotion and expectations.