"The eternal feminine leads us on." So concluded Johann Wolfgang von Goethe his dramatic masterpiece, Faust, knowing full well that not only would future art reflect this timeless truth through a variety of media, but also that such a pronouncement expresses the psychic essence of artistic creation itself.
Guido Contini, the protagonist of "Nine", is an artist of a very public and practical type – and therefore one more acutely oppressed by the world in the form of its everyday trials and demands. It comes as no surprise, then, that Guido exemplifies this sexual intensity that both nurtures and tortures the artist.
Directed by David Leveaux and illuminated by stars that include screen-actor Antonio Banderas and Broadway old-hand Chita Rivera, the show pulls off the difficult feat of justly honoring its cinematic forebear, "8 1/2," while at the same time developing and maintaining its own artistic identity and unity.
It is impossible to undertake any sort of meaningful review of "Nine" without first discussing the work of cinema that inspired, nourished and gave structure to "Nine," the appropriately named "8 1/2" (it was the director's eighth-and-a-half film).
Written, directed and produced by creative genius and Italian filmmaker senza pari, Federico Fellini, "8 1/2" joins a long tradition of meta-art – it is a film about a famous Italian director making a film.
Whether such propinquity between artist and subject is honest or narcissistic I decline to judge. Using a highly surrealistic, oneiric, and expressionistic cinematic technique, Fellini depicts the disintegrating world of film director Guido Anselmi. Hallucinatory and mnemonic episodes nonchalantly intrude upon Anselmi's egocentric perception of the world and events.
The film shows Anselmi living out his final days in a spa-town, attempting to satisfy his unhappy wife and carnivorous mistress, struggling to fulfill his own self-created image (self-created in two respects), and desperately trying to come up with an original movie – the shooting of which is contractually scheduled to begin in a few days.
The film stands today as a paragon of cinema and a stunning exposition of the lyric and psychodramatic potential of film, and "Nine," is a successful adaptation of this classic into the musical format.
Of course, Felliniesque cinema naturally lends itself well to musical adaptation because its trademark qualities (a subjectivity/egocentrism of perception, strong world-poeticization, a psychocentric aetiology, temporal discontinuity, and a narrative mode more thematic than diachronic) are not only old and well-established devices of the stage (which trace their roots back to Faust and Peer Gynt among others), but are also viewed as legitimate features by audiences (a statement which certainly could not be made for those shocked filmgoers of 1963!).
Guido Contini (the former Anselmi) possesses an essentially tragic psychology – he is enormously gifted by, yet beholden to, his creative drive – which manifests itself in the form of feminine adulation, approval, and satisfaction.
He requires the stimulation of a women (in a physical, social, and spiritual sense); he needs their praise; he needs their presence; he needs to satisfy them continually; he donne vuole bene (to reference one of "Nine's" songs).
Fundamentally, there are only two characters in "Nine": Guido and Woman. Guido is doubly played by Antonio Banderas and child-actor William Ullrich. The female actors are mere avatars for the different aspects of Guido's sexual psyche. "I need only you," Guido sings honestly to woman after woman in one particularly ironic scene.
Jung would no doubt identify such a phenomenon as 'the attempted realization of the anima,' but we need not confine ourselves with dogma. The staid "virgin/whore dichotomy" is shattered in "Nine" to reveal the full sexual continuum of a dramatic world populated variously by virgins, whores, mothers and Muses.
Of course, the musical numbers of this show were delightful. The initial number, "Overture Delle Donne," presents the charming and unforgettable image of Guido encircled by a gaggle of fawning women. The harmony of attraction and repulsion is well choreographed. "My Husband Makes Movies" is Luisa's loving and empathetic attempt to understand her husband's complexities. This song also serves as the closing number of the show, and the simple statement of its refrain fittingly summarizes the character and drama of Guido Contini.
Personally, my favorite song was the flashback "Ti Voglio Bene," in which the exotic Serraghina (superbly played by Myra Taylor) 'romantically initiates' young Guido and fatefully sets him on his path, persuasively exhorting him to, "Be Italian, Be a lover, Be a singer."
Perhaps the most touching number was delivered by the child actor William Ullrich as Young Guido. "Getting Tall" is a child's ode to childhood and its eventual eclipse. Synecdochizing the aging process with the refreshingly direct trope of 'getting tall,' young Guido innocently warns of "scraped knees" along the way.
His young status contributes to an essentially young conception of the world. Aware as we are of the song's tragic naiveté, its limited vision so evident from our higher viewpoint, we nevertheless feel compelled to assent to its naive wisdom, to affirm that the beautiful universe of which he sings is at heart a microcosm of our own.
"Nine" alternately entertains, tickles, seduces, and saddens. It explores the psychic profundity of Guido Contini – a strange land full of strange beasts – and creates a musical, Felliniesque world wracked by incredible tension in which redemption involves the past-self, the present-self, and the figures of psychic fantasy and nightmare.
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