Nine

‘Nine’ has its WA Premiere at the comfortable 135-seat Roleystone Theatre, 587 Brookton Highway, Roleystone.

On seeing Fellini’s ‘Eight and a half’, Maury Yeston saw much of it as his own life and so, in 1973, he started to write this musical, based on the film. Playwright Mario Fratti started to write the script in 1977, but the Broadway producers rejected this. In 1981 they abandoned Fratti’s work and Arthur Kopit was hired to start the script again. Yeston finished the lyrics and music. Kopit then blended his story with Yeston’s music to complete the show as we see it here. The recent film, despite winning four Oscars, was not true to the musical and lost many of the qualities.

This light opera runs nightly at 8.00 pm until Saturday 4^th December.

       Famous Italian film director, Guido Contini (Paul Spencer) is sought after mainly for his passion and body, rather than his directing skills. His long suffering wife, Luisa (Kimberley Harris) in spite of his denials knows that he has two main lovers - the sexy temptress, Carla (Priscilla Cornelius) and one of his star actresses, the stunning blonde Claudia (Clara Helms).

      To prove his loyalty to his wife he takes her to a spa hotel, away from the temptations. Still he is followed by dozens of groupie girls, big, small, blonde, dark, lustful and even gun-touting, he attracts them all, in particular the Lady of the Spa (Kim Moore). He has flashbacks to when he was nine (Tennessee Buti / Connor Browne) and the happier more stable love of his mother (Jodie Hansen) and his introduction to love by Sarrachina (Hayley Parker).

      Even on holiday, his wife is again justifiably suspicious of his philandering, and so he tells her that to occupy his time he will write another film script. His French producer (Corrine Hands) and her director / dominatrix friend Necrophorus (Nicole George) demand to see a script, but there isn’t one.

       Will he find a topic to film? Will it ever get made? Will he find true love?

 

In community theatre, to assemble a cast of around two dozen is extremely difficult, to get even a reasonable performance out of half the actors is a major problem. Here director Paul Treasure has the whole cast enthusiastic, moving beautifully and singing in harmony – a miracle!

The choreography (Emma Davis) was quite complex and yet one-and-all gave it their very best. When sauciness was called for in a number, the actors got right into it.

The live music from the band (Mix Margaret Dylan Jones, Feidhlim Bennetts, Sharmila Periakarpan, Kirsty Page, Leo Downsborough and Sam Warne) came from the gantry above the stage. The band was conducted by Sarah Cosstick. The volume was just at the correct level to allow the words of the songs to be heard clearly.

The lighting was well designed and operated (Peter ‘Pear’ Carr), and there is a very effective lighting piece near the end of the play. Emily Thompson and her helpers had around 100 excellent costumes to design and look after, many of them designer label or provocative, from ‘the little black number’ to a tutti-frutti Carmen Miranda.

Stephen Carr has designed the set in the form of a typical Italian courtyard with working fountain. The solid construction, paving and tiling effect was admirable.

 

This musical, almost a light opera, was wonderful the cast kept a crippling pace going for the full two and a half hours. The voices, several ex WAAPA musically trained, were magnificent. The words of the songs ranged from sad to the very funny ‘Germans at the Spa’, which mocked the Germans’ need to claim their areas with towels. Several accents were called for and these were performed most convincingly.

A quality evening at the theatre.