The SpeakEasy Stage Company's current musical production of "Nine" centers on Guido Contini and his varying relationships with many women — so many women, in fact, that even Guido can't keep track of them.
Guido, who is a famous Italian film director, suffers from writer's block after his last three films have turned out to be flops. As a contract looms over him, along with a determined producer, Guido runs away with his wife Luisa to relax at a spa in Venice.
But all the women in Guido's life also show up in Venice, whether in Guido's mind or in actuality, and the result is a romp through imagination and reality.
Guido's happiness comes from loving women, yet the number of women he loves — and the one or two he doesn't — quickly becomes the biggest problem in his life. Guido realizes a little too late that women — including his wife, his mistress, his mother, his favorite actress and muse, his producer and others that flit in and out of the Venetian spa — are not as easily orchestrated as he would like.
The set's structure attempts to aid Guido in organizing the large cast of women, supplying him with a backdrop of arched doorways that the women stand in for a good portion of the show, profiling and compartmentalizing them. Yet even when properly situated in the framed tile doorways, the presence of so many women on the stage is overwhelming and crowded. Just as in Guido's mind, their presence on the stage is chaotic despite attempts to constrain them.
As one of the only male actors in the performance — two young actors, Erik March and Andrew Stewart, share the role of LIttle Guido — Timothy John Smith puts on a very convincing performance as Guido. The character is a complicated man of bold actions, fluctuating confidences and incompatible desires.
Even Guido realizes the many contradictions he embodies. When he sings "Guido's Song," he admits to himself that what he wants is truly impossible, yet he can't stop himself from wanting everything.
Out of the plethora of female characters, the three closest and most important women to Guido are Luisa (Aimee Doherty), Guido's mistress Carla (McCaela Donovan) and the actress Claudia (Jennifer Ellis). For Guido, the three create a Bermuda Triangle when they meet in the Venetian Spa, and it leaves him in a hallucinatory space. Despite the intentional confusion, the three actresses succeed in portraying characters with very different personalities, even if Guido cannot always keep them straight.
The most prominent characteristic that the women share is their unrelenting love and adoration for Guido. No matter how he treats them, their loyalty to him persists.
The only explanation for the women's excessive admiration is revealed in a pivotal memory of Guido's, when the nine−year−old version of himself ventures to the disreputable Sarraghina to learn about love.
Sarraghina (Kerry A. Dowling) takes part in a climactic point in the production, as well as a primal moment in Guido's life. Sarraghina's powerful number "Ti Voglio Bene/Be Italian" is filled with simple, even obvious advice, and yet it turns out to be the only love potion Guido needs to get himself into as much trouble as he does later on.
The thought of a simple idea escalating into a complicated disaster fits nicely into the overall theme of the production itself.
All of the women in Guido's life are sources of material for his films. He uses his situation in the spa as the starting point for the film he has to make, and his tendency to blur the boundaries of dream and reality become paramount.
As the women watch versions of themselves acted out before them, they realize, along with Guido, something about love that goes beyond Sarraghina's simple advice.
Directed by Paul Daigneault, the musical is based on the Italian director Federico Fellini's semi−autobiographical film "8 1/2" (1963). The musical's book is by Arthur Kopit, with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. It is running through Feb. 20 at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston's South End.
