50 Favourite Musicals: 39: NINE (1982) (Maury Yeston)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1982, 46th Street Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1997, Donmar

Productions seen: one

Score: Maury Yeston

Book: Arthur Kopit

Plot:  1960s Venice; Guido Contini, a famous film director, wrestles with the subject of his overdue next film while thinking of the women in his life, both current and in the past...

Five memorable numbers: FOLLIES BERGERES, BE ON YOUR OWN, MY HUSBAND MAKES MOVIES, UNUSUAL WAY, BE ITALIAN

It's odd how you come to some musicals... I came to NINE through Elaine Paige's "Be On Your Own" on an 1983 album 'Stages'; the song intrigued me with it's compelling, snaking through-line that calls out an unfaithful lover.  I was so intrigued I bought the Broadway cast album and found that in it's original setting, it wasn't Paige's 80s power pop ballad but a downbeat, powerful, cold-as-ice dismissal.  The more I played the album, the more I was drawn into Maury Yeston's thrilling musical of Federico Fellini's film "8 1/2"  that gives a dizzying array of numbers to his lead character Guido and the women in his life: his long-suffering wife Luisa, his mistress Carla, his favourite actress Claudia, his producer Liliane and in his memory, Saraghina, the ample prostitute he desired as a boy.  Tommy Tune famously made his original production a chic black & white-themed show in which Raul Julia was the only male (along with a boy actor) in a cast of women.  I finally got to see the show in David Levaux's Donmar production which made a virtue of it's small playing area but still flooded the stage to show us Guido's vision of "The Grand Canal".  Laconic Larry Lamb played Guido and he was surrounded by some great musical actresses: Clare Burt, Eleanor David, Sara Kestelman and, in particular, Susannah Fellows who brought real heartbreak to Luisa, and a show-stopping turn from Jenny Galloway as the voluptuous Saraghina.  Despite the clunking screen version, this is a show that could definitely take a revival...

The 1982 Tony Awards delivered a shock when NINE beat the highly-touted DREAMGIRLS to Best Musical along with winning four other awards; the telecast immortalized the late Kathi Moss' rattling performance as Saraghina and her big number "Be Italian"...

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD at the Old Vic

Yes Constant Reader it's true... I really struggle with Tom Stoppard.  There, I've said it.  I feel cleansed.

It's that Smart Alec air, the over-use of wordplay and punning which wears me down; I feel I want to yell back at the stage "Yes I get it, English is your adopted language - now stop the bloody barrage!".  So you can imagine that it was with a heavy heart that I sat down to watch his first big success ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD now revived at the Old Vic, the very theatre where it made it's London debut 50 years ago staged by Olivier's National Theatre.

My only experience with Stoppard's play was seeing his own drab 1990 screen version starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman so at least I had a general idea of what to expect but swipe me, I really liked it!  In large part this was due to David Levaux' crisp and fast-moving direction but also impressing were Joshua McGuire as Guildenstern and - the real success of the evening - Daniel Radcliffe as Rosencrantz.

Stoppard's megamix of WAITING FOR GODOT and HAMLET muses on what happens to Rosencrantz and Guldenstern - Hamlet's university friends invited to Elsinore to spy on him by Claudius - when they are offstage.  They sit and wait for Hamlet, Claudius and Polonius to update them on what is happening - they chat, they bicker, they play question-and-answer games, they guess at what's going on but even when they are told by Claudius to actually do something - to find what Hamlet has done with Polonius' body - they don't do anything.  Finally they get to do something when they escort Hamlet to England... but as we know, this doesn't end well...

Stoppard's clever trick is to use the actual Shakespeare text for the scenes from HAMLET but uses vernacular in the scenes between the two friends as well as their scenes with The Player, the leader of the troupe of actors so beloved by Hamlet.  The Player gives David Haig the chance to be as splenetic as ever but also to investigate Stoppard's musings on the permanence of death and the pretense of performing.  Who better to muse on death than the actor who has to die convincingly?

Maguire and Radcliffe make a good double-act, the former obviously the more dominant of the two as he gets so easily exasperated at Radcliffe's sweetly naive Rosencrantz.  But under the comedy wordplay they also suggest a sadness and pathos of two lost souls caught up in a situation not of their making and although not aware of it, totally in over their heads.  As I said above, this really does showcase how good Radcliffe is now as a stage actor - EQUUS and HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS.. showed him to be a charismatic performer but those early performances had an air of trying too hard, here he seems relaxed on stage which helps the comedy.

The excellent performances of the three lead actors is matched by a fine supporting cast; it was interesting seeing this so soon after the Almeida Theatre production of HAMLET and it must be said that the performances of Luke Mullins as Hamlet, William Chubb as Polonius and Helena Wilson as Ophelia are as good as anything seen in a standard production of Shakespeare's play.

As I said David Leveaux' production has a nimbleness that only slightly becomes becalmed as the play comes to an end but overall it kept one engaged in not just the dizzying wordplay but the action both offstage and on.  The non-specific set by Anna Fleischle and lighting by Howard Harrison also contribute greatly to the overall enjoyment to be had.

It has just been announced that ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD has been extended at the Old Vic to May 6th - this production is thoroughly recommended both for a good laugh but also for the arguments which linger in the mind after.