REVIEW: Nine (Kennedy Center)
The Kennedy Center continues to light up DC’s off-season with their splashy Broadway Center Stage series. The latest to hit the Eisenhower is 1982’s Nine, a soppy adaptation of the influential Italian film 8 1/2, starring Broadway vet Stephen Pasquale and directoreographed (coining this term now, but we’ll workshop it) by three-time Tony winner Andy Blankenbuehler.
Book/Music
Who is this for?
In Nine, famed film director Guido Costini is in the middle of crisis. As he struggles to drum up an idea for his next film — off the heels of three consecutive flops, we’re reminded — his marriage is in shambles. But I mean, what is to expect when you alienate your wife by constantly gaslighting and cheating on her? Truthfully, it felt tone-deaf to stage this piece in a post-#MeToo era. I seldom have any pity for this man; not when he grovels to his mistress, his muse, or his producer. Not when he reminisces of how a beach-laying prostitute led him through life when nobody else (except his disappointed mother) would. In fact, it’s practically schadenfreude watching him wallow about when he himself has made this bed to lay in. (Is this just what it’s like in Italy?) Musically; there is a score, for sure. Perhaps the inanity of Arthur Kopit’s book distracted me too much from it to find it memorable. 2/10
Acting
Par for the course with the Broadway Center Stage series is a stacked list of performers. This time Pasquale headlines, taking the reigns as Guido with believably solid woe-is-me attitude and characteristically voluminous voice. (Guido’s younger version, the 10-year-old Charlie Firlik, is just as good, if not more impressive due to his age, by the way.) Carolee Carmello is radiant as his producer, Liliane La Fleur, with a particularly notable Hello, Dolly-like number early in the first act. The beating heart of the sullen production is Elizabeth Stanley’s Luisa however, as she remains the most sympathetic element and fully absorbs the longing exerted by the character. 5/10
Production
The hallmarks of a Blankenbuehler production are all here. It’s drab, yet somehow chic; his choreography is fluid and eye-catching. Derek McLane’s scaffolding set design is starkly practical with its bridally draped curtaining, and I was surprised by how effective Cory Pattak’s lighting design was, with its bullet trail spotlights and conniving use of shadow. Some things, like the stage left pulpit and receding stage right balcony, felt out of place or even in the way during larger numbers. Still — it’s something nice to look at, and features a razorlike vision that you will be hard pressed to find in this level of commercial theatre these days. 6/10
Viz
Black! White! Gray! Nine! It’s all there, from the plain program art (with a cleverly-inserted film grain that is only barely visible) to its lofty scrim involving high-up projections of the number “9”. It actually tells more with less pretty well, and the experience is well-advertised. 9/10
Verdict
Nine is a stylish production of a dated musical with an efforted, but enjoyable cast. 22/40
