Stephen Pasquale to star in NINE at Kennedy Center — Page 3

I saw this Saturday night and will echo a lot of what's here. It felt under rehearsed. I think this is a beautiful score and it just wasn't vocally there. So much of the ensemble was pitchy and there were definite sound problems. It felt like all the rehearsal time went into the choreography and so little of it elevated anything. It just felt so dang busy and distracting. Exhausting really. 

For me Stanley was the standout. She sounded great and let her character shine through (though I agree she, like most of the cast, could've used some better direction) instead of trying to turn her song into a moment. Pasquale did a solid job and it made me appreciate him more. Carmello was good, but definitely needed direction and by the time we got to her number I was so over all the choreography, I wanted it to be over. Or to have Chita Rivera back in the part. (The 2003 revival is still one of my all time favorite things I've ever seen onstage.)

To the poster asking the Lloyd question, I'm not 100% sure that a sheer stripped down version would work because as much as I enjoy the book, like the source movie (8 1/2), it's pretty abstract at times and needs directorial touches to help connect emotional threads. Maybe that would work in a Lloyd version, but I haven't observed it in any of the things I've seen of his. 

Have to admit, I did love this. Elizabeth Stanley was the standout for me, I completely forgot it was her until I read the program. Carolee is a treasure as always. I saw the original and revival, but often forget the show’s genius. But man, was I reminded how miscast and misguided the film version was. At least Kate Hudson had fun! 
 

I do know Andy Blankenbuehler asked Jeffrey Finn if he could direct it once they announced the Broadway Center Stage series. Curious what the production would have shaped up without his involvement.

The ensemble is where the show suffered. Maybe it was an off night, but one seemed particularly off tonight. Quite rough. All directors have their Rolodex of actors, but I’ve found his to be particularly…off in productions he’s directed. 

 

Updated On: 8/6/24 at 10:56 PM

I saw this last night and I enjoyed it in spite of what was a stupid stupid production.

I went in expecting slightly elevated summer stock with Encores production values, and that's what it was. They gamely went for the material. If it lacked some finesse, the short rehearsal process (and wrongheaded 'director') are to blame.

Class of her Own: Carolee
Great: Pasquale, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Lesli Margherita
Good: Elizabeth Stanley

Possibly the best Pasquale has ever sung, and he gets the overall big swings with the acting. Thought he was just terrific for these circumstances. I thought it was well-enough performed that the material could carry the evening. It's one of the Great Scores, and hearing it in person in context is very moving.

As for that stupid stupid production

• who in their right mind says "we have 10 days. Everyone do an Italian accent. No the show doesn't actually require it but it's what I want! Great, whatever accent you have on day one will do"? It actually took me several minutes to realize certain people were speaking English. If you don't have rehearsal time to work on the accents and get at least 90% of the cast doing the same accent (everyone presented a totally different Italian accent), don't bother. Especially since The Show Does Not Require Italian Accents.
• he kept moving the conductor off of the podium so he could put a chorus girl in that spot to complete his stage picture. Watching the conductor conduct for 3 bars, sheepishly walk off, then come back before the song ended was just...weird.
• he has a chorus girl conduct just about every bar of music. It switches around from person to person with no reason. It's distracting, especially since it is apparent few of them can actually conduct. Some aren't even catching the time signature changes, so you're watching them pointlessly wave their arms out of time to the music. He could have had the final image Act One pay off if Guido had conducted the overture. None of the rest was needed.
• when you cast soprano Stanley and high belter Carmello, you had to realize those two characters traditionally sing the low (contr)alto line. Go ahead and cast them, they were both good. But you need to find a couple great altos. This did not occur to Andy. The overture was the only piece I found sincerely messy, and it was because of this.
• certain people during their brief vocal solo moments proved they were great dancers. You couldn't find a better vocalist in the cast to cover those?
• My Husband Makes Movies - he had chorus girls upstaging Elizabeth Stanley and visually blocking her from the audience at moments. Why? Why are you putting barriers between performer and audience during that song? Which leads to...
• his choreography is the physical embodiment of white noise. There were moments where his choreo worked. They were massively outnumbered by pointless busy movement that added nothing. You can drown him out - the person moving the plot is almost always the person who is standing still. Which points out how pointless his work is. If I'm generous to him, 15% of his choreo is essential to the storytelling. The rest is white noise. Adds nothing and you can choose to drown it out/not look. It unfortunately becomes so distracting at moments that you have no choice but to look.

The lighting design was gorgeous. It was decently performed. I found it a lot less sloppy than others have said. I had a lovely time.

Blankenbuehler is still advertising an upcoming Spiderwoman revival in his bio - and after last night - dear god ANYONE ELSE.

Pasquale was great, though his accent sounded Trump adjacent at times. 

The Kennedy center doesn’t use discount codes a la a Broadway discount. 

BorisTomashevsky said: "This shows some examples of what a few of us have mentioned.

https://youtu.be/DuM05V1F3uo?si=4tagds_5KAwYbQcp"

I audibly said "Oh God no..." at the first 30 seconds and turned it off.

Call From the Vatican was the lowlight of the night. 

I don’t like how they dressed up Carolee.  She looks like Jessica Rabbit.  

BorisTomashevsky said: "Call From the Vatican was the lowlight of the night."

Far  more damaging than the dancing were the horrible accents, which when coupled with the super fast  tempi and unnecessarily loud amplification, made  a good portion of the very good lyrics unintelligible. I can't imagine anyone not already familiar with the show having a clue what "Call From the Vatican" and some of the other numbers were about.

At last night's performance (Thursday), I thought the production settled down a bit towards the end of  Act II, allowing a glimpse of what an exquisite show NINE can be. I do think that the whole of this production is better than the sum of its many disappointing parts (and apparently a lot of the audience last night did too). For example, I just listened to Raul Julia and Banderas sing "I Could Be Happy with You (or "yeeuw" as Antonio sings it), both of whom I adored on stage, but Pasquale, who looks ridiculously good as Guido, does have the most beautiful voice of the three. And Charlie Firlik as Young Guido is a preternaturally talented triple threat, while I thought Mastrantonio was the MVP among the women, which I guess is why, for me, the production finally took flight during the home stretch.

For anyone still interested, TodayTix has major discounts for both Saturday performances. 

 

 

SisterGeorge said: "For example, I just listened to Raul Julia and Banderas sing "I Could Be Happy with You (or "yeeuw" as Antonio sings it), both of whom I adored on stage, but Pasquale, who looks ridiculously goodas Guido,does have the most beautiful voice of the three."

Agreeing on this point. Broadening things across the ocean, I’d vote for John Diedrich from the Australian production, while not as pretty a voice as Pasquale’s, as being the best-sung Guido of all. His clips are on YouTube and I’d imagine also on streaming services. 

 

I was at the final performance yesterday and I loved it. Acknowledging some of the critiques on here, I still loved it. Steven Pasquale was fulfilling his Destiny by playing this role and he did it gorgeously! He not only is incredibly handsome and charismatic but he's also such a great singer and comic actor! And Carolee Carmelo! What can I say? I loved Elizabeth Stanley as well and the rest of the cast I enjoyed to varying degrees. I found the constant movement and dancing beautiful at times and sometimes intrusive, but it never succeeded in lessening my enjoyment of this production.

I caught the Saturday matinee of this and was pleasantly surprised considering how dour the reviews on this board had been, but I think it makes sense that it's tightened up a bit after a week of doing it.  I think hearing the score sung by these voices was worth the price of admission alone (particularly Steven Pasquale, Elizabeth Stanley, Shereen Ahmed, and Carolee Carmello).

The thing is that the direction is pretty uneven.  I think Blankenbuehler has some interesting ideas about how to explore the piece and I could see hints of themes shining through, but I don't know that he's a deft enough director yet to really convey those ideas effectively.  He talks about some of his concept in the interview on the Kennedy Center website, which was interesting to read about: https://www.kennedy-center.org/our-story/blog/?p=andy-blankenbuehler-on-nine

The excessive movement really only bothered me in two places, one being My Husband Makes Movies (and I can't remember the second), but I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed the musicality of the choreography.  If this had been reimagined as a ballet to the songs of Nine or something, I think I would've quite enjoyed the choreo.

Having the different women in Guido's life "conduct" also kind of makes sense conceptually, but in practice came off as confusing and unnecessary.  It would be more clear if the women were conducting specific scenes that had to do with them, but it just felt like a rotating door of how to get the different characters on the podium.  

The most confusing part to me was the significance (or lack thereof) of the Our Lady of the Spa character (renamed Asa Nisi Masa).  It seemed like they wanted to make her character somewhat of a throughline--she's a principal character in the program and she seemed to sort of always be lurking around during some pivotal scenes (and especially the ending), but it was hard to figure out her purpose because she was never given an actual concept (like the Bullet in Hamilton) and also didn't have Germans at the Spa as a feature (did she even have a single word of dialogue or a line sung by herself?).

I really doubt this will move so I'm glad I made the trip.  My only experience with Nine had been the MSM student production that was also quite good, and it was interesting seeing the differences here.  Funnily enough when I went to Soft Power later that night I heard people in front of me raving about Nine and saying how they had gone 3 times and never seen anything like it, so it seems like it picked up its share of fans.