Cha-cha-cha Chita

Kiss of the Spider Woman, ace director Harold Prince's first stage smash since Phantom of the Opera, is about terrorism, political torture. sodomy, and death. It's a musical. In London, it's the musical. starring the legendary Queen op Broadway Gypsies, Chita (no relation to Geraldo) Rivera! Aided by a powerful book by Terrence McNally and the best Kander and Ebb score since Cabaret, Manuel Puig's bleak novel about life in a South American prison has been reincarnated with new passion. Chita, Puerto Rico's greatest export since the pina colada, gives it centrifugal force as Aurora, a theatrical

cross between Carmen Miranda and Cyd Charisse. Despite her age (just shy of 60 and a few steps away from a bus pass) and 12 pins in one leg from a near-fatal auto accident, the indomitable star of West Side Story and Bye Bye Birdie has been kicking her legs so long they just fall into place. "The doctor said I've got the bones of a 20-year-old woman, " she says. "Now, if he could just say the same thing about my face. " Next stop: Broadway in the spring, and no talk of retirement. "I intend to dance till I drop. Caramba! and amen.

REX REED