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All style, little substance in ‘Nine,’ the musical
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Reviewed by: FRAN HELLER Contributing Writer
Some shows can be so seductive, you can’t tell if you’ve been had.
So it is with “Nine,” the glossy, but papernthin musical about a famed film director caught in a midlife crisis. It’s at Cain Park through Aug. 19.
Created by Maury Yeston (music and lyrics) and Arthur Kopit (book), both of whom are Jewish, the 1982 musical is loosely based on Federico Fellini’s brilliant autobiographical 1963 film “8n1/2”; it’s an attribution Fellini never acknowledged.
The show won five Tonys, including Best Musical and Best Score. A 2003 revival starred Antonio Banderas as the filmmaker whose personal and professional life is in shambles.
The Cain Park production, like the glitzy revival I saw on Broadway, is all razzmatazz and little else.
Directed by showbiz maven Victoria Bussert, with a starnstudded cast including Fabio Polanco as the angstnridden director and Cleveland favorite Tracee Patterson as his longnsuffering wife, the show exposes the structural weaknesses of the narrative.
But what the musical lacks in substance, it more than compensates for in style, including Bussert’s imaginative staging and a bevy of 14 females, fine actors all, who serve both as a songnandndance Greek chorus and as the many women the director loved and who love him.
Best of all is Yeston’s ravishing score, brought to pulsating and hypnotic life by music director Nancy GantosenMaier, whose fournmember orchestra sounds a whole lot bigger.
The great Italian director Guido Contini suffers from a serious case of writer’s block. His last three films have been flops, and Luisa, his wife of 20 years, is about to leave him. Desperate for an idea, he turns to his own life for inspiration, including his relationships with the many women he has known. These include his deceased mother, a gypsy woman who teaches him the ways of love, his producer, his mistress and his muse.
The story takes place mostly in the director’s mind. The meshing of fantasy and reality with flashback in a nonlinear framework makes it hard to understand the characters or follow the confusing plot.
The setting is a Venetian spa, where Guido and his wife escape to find some peace. As Guido struggles to create a story for his film, his interior world and the real world become one.
I loved Russ Borski’s minimalist set, in which rows of Lucite chairs are flanked by a pair of winding staircases and two buildings; they’re saturated with fog, as in a steamy spa.
In the opening number, each of the 14 women takes her place, like players in an orchestra. They are directed by the adult Guido and by Guido at an early age.
Polanco is convincing as the immature Guido, a philandering husband who wants it all in his solo “Guido’s Song,” about a man whose body is clearing 40 and whose mind is nearing 10. “Only with You” is a lush melody in which Guido expresses his love for the principal women in his life. Polanco’s vocalism is appealing, but uneven.
The title derives from the titular song, a flashback to Guido’s ninth birthday, and in the personification of Guido as a 9nyearnold.
As Young Guido Contini, Aric Generette Floyd is adorable to look at, but there are times when his presence is confusing. Floyd’s voice is also too small, especially in his poignant solo, “Getting Tall,” in which the son teaches the father how to grow up.
Patterson adds a touch of class as Guido’s highnborn wife Luisa, who once yearned for a life of her own as an actress. In her haunting ballad “My Husband Makes Movies,” Luisa is hounded by the paparazzi, ingeniously choreographed by Martín Céspedes.
The show is a combination of elegance and kitsch.
Ensconced in a black fishnet body stocking, the voluptuous Trista Moldovan reveals more than a bit of flesh as Carla, Guido’s mistress. More caricature than vamp, Carla’s overtly erotic gestures in her song “A Call from the Vatican” lack sensuality.
Guido struggles to come up with a script, but his impatient French producer Lilliane La Fleur (an overnthentop performance by Maryann Nagel) wants only a musical. I held my breath as Nagel navigated a row of chairs in high heels with uncertainty, a silly and nonessential piece of choreography in “Folies Bergeres.”
The musical number “The Grand Canal” is the movie Guido makes. “The Grand Canal Film” sequence created by Kasumi turns Guido’s life story into a cartoon in the style of a mock Barolque opera. It’s a clever gimmick, albeit overly long and one that skirts bad taste.
Nanette Canfield charms as Guido’s mother, who wanted her son to become a priest or a lawyer, rather than making movies her friends don’t understand.
Cassandra Goldbach is the wild Sarraghina who introduces the Catholic schoolboy to forbidden dancing and sex.
Lovelyntonlooknat Joan Ellison radiates as the actress Claudia, Guido’s former lover and muse. Claudia sings one of the musical’s most ravishing songs, “A Man Like You/Unusual Way.”
The women are bathed in Borski’s chiaroscuro lighting to stunning effect. Terry Pieritz’s costumes, a dramatic study in black and white, summon notions of the original movie.
Those unfamiliar with the show may find some difficulty in following the storyline. I rented Fellini’s film beforehand, and I recommend you do the same.
Some shows can be so seductive, you can’t tell if you’ve been had.
So it is with “Nine,” the glossy, but papernthin musical about a famed film director caught in a midlife crisis. It’s at Cain Park through Aug. 19.
Created by Maury Yeston (music and lyrics) and Arthur Kopit (book), both of whom are Jewish, the 1982 musical is loosely based on Federico Fellini’s brilliant autobiographical 1963 film “8n1/2”; it’s an attribution Fellini never acknowledged.
The show won five Tonys, including Best Musical and Best Score. A 2003 revival starred Antonio Banderas as the filmmaker whose personal and professional life is in shambles.
The Cain Park production, like the glitzy revival I saw on Broadway, is all razzmatazz and little else.
Directed by showbiz maven Victoria Bussert, with a starnstudded cast including Fabio Polanco as the angstnridden director and Cleveland favorite Tracee Patterson as his longnsuffering wife, the show exposes the structural weaknesses of the narrative.
But what the musical lacks in substance, it more than compensates for in style, including Bussert’s imaginative staging and a bevy of 14 females, fine actors all, who serve both as a songnandndance Greek chorus and as the many women the director loved and who love him.
Best of all is Yeston’s ravishing score, brought to pulsating and hypnotic life by music director Nancy GantosenMaier, whose fournmember orchestra sounds a whole lot bigger.
The great Italian director Guido Contini suffers from a serious case of writer’s block. His last three films have been flops, and Luisa, his wife of 20 years, is about to leave him. Desperate for an idea, he turns to his own life for inspiration, including his relationships with the many women he has known. These include his deceased mother, a gypsy woman who teaches him the ways of love, his producer, his mistress and his muse.
The story takes place mostly in the director’s mind. The meshing of fantasy and reality with flashback in a nonlinear framework makes it hard to understand the characters or follow the confusing plot.
The setting is a Venetian spa, where Guido and his wife escape to find some peace. As Guido struggles to create a story for his film, his interior world and the real world become one.
I loved Russ Borski’s minimalist set, in which rows of Lucite chairs are flanked by a pair of winding staircases and two buildings; they’re saturated with fog, as in a steamy spa.
In the opening number, each of the 14 women takes her place, like players in an orchestra. They are directed by the adult Guido and by Guido at an early age.
Polanco is convincing as the immature Guido, a philandering husband who wants it all in his solo “Guido’s Song,” about a man whose body is clearing 40 and whose mind is nearing 10. “Only with You” is a lush melody in which Guido expresses his love for the principal women in his life. Polanco’s vocalism is appealing, but uneven.
The title derives from the titular song, a flashback to Guido’s ninth birthday, and in the personification of Guido as a 9nyearnold.
As Young Guido Contini, Aric Generette Floyd is adorable to look at, but there are times when his presence is confusing. Floyd’s voice is also too small, especially in his poignant solo, “Getting Tall,” in which the son teaches the father how to grow up.
Patterson adds a touch of class as Guido’s highnborn wife Luisa, who once yearned for a life of her own as an actress. In her haunting ballad “My Husband Makes Movies,” Luisa is hounded by the paparazzi, ingeniously choreographed by Martín Céspedes.
The show is a combination of elegance and kitsch.
Ensconced in a black fishnet body stocking, the voluptuous Trista Moldovan reveals more than a bit of flesh as Carla, Guido’s mistress. More caricature than vamp, Carla’s overtly erotic gestures in her song “A Call from the Vatican” lack sensuality.
Guido struggles to come up with a script, but his impatient French producer Lilliane La Fleur (an overnthentop performance by Maryann Nagel) wants only a musical. I held my breath as Nagel navigated a row of chairs in high heels with uncertainty, a silly and nonessential piece of choreography in “Folies Bergeres.”
The musical number “The Grand Canal” is the movie Guido makes. “The Grand Canal Film” sequence created by Kasumi turns Guido’s life story into a cartoon in the style of a mock Barolque opera. It’s a clever gimmick, albeit overly long and one that skirts bad taste.
Nanette Canfield charms as Guido’s mother, who wanted her son to become a priest or a lawyer, rather than making movies her friends don’t understand.
Cassandra Goldbach is the wild Sarraghina who introduces the Catholic schoolboy to forbidden dancing and sex.
Lovelyntonlooknat Joan Ellison radiates as the actress Claudia, Guido’s former lover and muse. Claudia sings one of the musical’s most ravishing songs, “A Man Like You/Unusual Way.”
The women are bathed in Borski’s chiaroscuro lighting to stunning effect. Terry Pieritz’s costumes, a dramatic study in black and white, summon notions of the original movie.
Those unfamiliar with the show may find some difficulty in following the storyline. I rented Fellini’s film beforehand, and I recommend you do the same.
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