Nine — Page 2

I'll definately agree with Mary Stuart Masterson getting the tony award over Jane. Also, had Harvey Firestein not been in the part of Edna Turnblad I think that Antonio would have won the tony. With any other actor I think the part of Edna may go into the featured-actor category(at least judging by the amount of stage time compared to Tracy who is the lead). Did that last part make sense to anyone?

I did not see the original, but based on the recording it was smashing. I do find the orchestrations to be more lush in the revival, and it seems slicker as if it were a well-oiled machine.

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I was doing some cast research and saw that Deidre Goodwin was the Our Lady of the Spa. Is this the same actress who was in the film Chicago in the Cell Block Tango, I forgot the character's name, maybe June, but she's the "squish" girl who stabs her husband 10 times. Is this a match?

Yes. She then left NINE early to play Velma opposite Melanie Griffith, then did NEVER GONNA DANCE. She is FANTASTIC - the only almost enjoyable part of NGD.

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Munk,

I didn't like Leveaux's revival, for the most part. And I didn't find it more substantial than the original Tune production.

Tune has a reputation of being more about style than substance, and I understand where it comes from, as his stagings are certainly steeped in style. But his contributions to NINE go beyond the brilliance of his original staging. It was his idea to have the entire cast (other than Guido and the young boys) played by women. As conceived by Yeston, it was a mixed cast, and several characters (Lillian LaFleur, in particular) were originally written to be performed by men, as in the original Fellini.

Probably more than any other musical, NINE screams for a director with dramatic style. It's about a director with wild, unconventional, brilliant ideas. (Film director, sure. But still.) It's also a very difficult musical for a director. It has no plot.

And I felt that Leveaux not only didn't bring anything original to the piece, he dropped the ball on several of the most important moments. "Germans at the Spa" is really important, structurally speaking, to that score. While it doesn't move the action forward, the audience needs a break from Guido's neuroses, and it's in the perfect spot. Cutting it was a mistake. His staging of "Be Italian" missed the point entirely. And the flooding of the stage during the "Grand Canal" sequence was overkill. The audience was more concerned whether the actors could balance on the chairs and avoid getting their expensive Italian shoes wet than actually witnessing Guido's breakdown.

There were things I liked about the Leveaux revival (Masterson, Benanti, the fun "Vatican" staging), but for the most part, I was disappointed.