Nine

 Nine: Lawson Taitte review

Don’t miss Lyric Stage’s fabulously sung and played ‘Nine’

Here’s my review of Lyric Stage’s Nine, which I saw at Thursday’s final dress rehearsal.

Nine, to paraphrase its most stunning song, is a very unusual musical. It doesn’t come along often, and it may never have been sung or played as well as in its short current run at Lyric Stage.

Playwright Arthur Kopit and composer Maury Yeston adapted Federico Fellini’s great autobiographical film 8 ½ into the 1982 Tony Award-winning best musical. It was an audacious project, because the movie’s mix of dream, memory, fantasy and a film-within-a-film can confuse and overwhelm a first-time viewer. Tommy Tune’s ground-breaking original production was similarly bold.

The plot centers on Italian director Guido Contini, who has signed a contract to make a new movie but doesn’t have any idea of what it’s going to be about. He’s surrounded by a bevy of women—his wife, his mistress, his star, his producer, the ghost of his mother and many more. Eventually both his career and his personal life are destroyed, but you can count on the power of the imagination to provide a happy ending.

The 2003 Broadway revival of Nine starring Antonio Banderas proved successful. The thoughtful 2009 screen version starring Daniel Day-Louis didn’t reach its audience. Now Lyric Stage, which usually performs in Irving, is using the show to establish a beachhead in Dallas’ Arts District.

The production looks good but sounds even better. All Lyric Stage’s shows these days uniquely feature large orchestras led by the formidable Jay Dias. The 34 instrumentalists in Nine—all of them women, to further engulf Guido in the eternal feminine—sound unbelievably lush as they share the Dallas City Performance Hall stage with the actors.

Director-choreographer Len Pfluger’s cast proves how much better trained American musical-theater performers have become in the 30 years since Nine first opened. Steve Barcus may not have the macho star power of his famous predecessors in the role of Guido, but he could out-sing any of them in his sleep. He also has a deliciously comic sense of timing to contribute to his egomaniacal character’s other qualities.

Many of North Texas’ top singing actresses surround him, even in some of the tiniest roles. Catherine Carpenter Cox is a forceful presence as Guido’s long-suffering wife, Luisa. Her final outburst of pain and rejection, “Be on Your Own,” bears an almost tragic weight. Guido’s mistress, Carla, always brings down the house with her sexy telephone number, ironically titled “A Call from the Vatican.” Danielle Estes does not disappoint.

Two of Dallas’ most experienced performers get the big production numbers: Linda Leonard as the producer Liliane La Fleur relives her youthful past in “Folies Bergeres,” and Sara Shelby-Martin as the woman on the beach who stirs up Guido’s childhood sexual awareness leads the rollicking “Be Italian.” To that haunting ballad “Unusual Way” Janelle Lutz, playing the star who is Guido’s muse, brings tenderness as well as power.

Nine has one of most complex and beautiful scores among American musicals. Don’t miss the chance to hear it in all its glory.