Whereas most other musicals currently on the boards are, for better and worse, cartoonish and relentless, Nine is sophisticated and dreamlike. It's part pageant, part reverie, part smirking ego-trip - which is not surprising given the source: Federico Fellini's celebrated mish-mash, "8 1/2." The creators of Nine nearly get away with having a non-starting plot - world-famous Italian director Guido arrives at a Venetian spa with no idea for a movie and three days to think of one, so he creates a film out of his memories, his fantasies and his desperation. The idea is enough, perhaps, for the imagistic world of cinema, but not quite up to the demands of a full-length musical. One can sense how groundbreaking Nine must have been in 1982 while also missing the old-fashioned craftwork that would make us care whether Guido and his wife, Luisa, stay together. (No shame in what's being attempted here; James Goldman couldn't manage it with the estimable Follies, either.) So, as in Fellini's film, we get an array of sequences, rather than a real tale told. As such, the actors carry the day. Antonio Banderas surprises with his singing and truly endearing jumps into childlike sweetness. As Guido's mistress Carla, Jane Krakowski is reaping lots of critical kudos for being lowered from the ceiling, upside down, in a towel and still being sexy, but what she should really get credit for is making her secondary character the most indelible in the show; Mary Stuart Masterson proves a winsome and more-than-capable (though not galvanic) Luisa, while Laura Benanti has a nice scene as Guido's empathetic leading lady.
Chita Rivera does a mostly comic turn saluting the Folies Bergere, which amuses but is the first indication that the musical doesn't always know where it's going. Serendipitous as this may sound, on a scale of one to ten, Nine merits...an eight-and-a-half.
