Weekend Review: TMP’s ‘NINE’ scores a 10

Tacoma Musical Playhouse is on fire… theatrically speaking that is.

Its staging of NINE, The Musical is simply fun and electric.

This musical stage version of Frederico Fellini’s influential 1963 Italian film 8 1/2 is filled with solid performances, great choreography and golden vocals from lights-on to curtain-drop.

NINE is the story of celebrated Italian film director, Guido Contini, who has turned 40 and faces a double crisis – he has to shoot a film for which he cannot write the script; and his wife of 20 years, the film star Luisa del Forno, may be about to leave him. Those troubles aren’t separate as it turns out.

Tops on the stellar performances are the anchor cast of Rafe Wadleigh as Guido and Maria Valenzuela as his at-wits-end wife Luisa. Wadleigh walks the perfect line of “villain you will love to hate” as the personally-conflicted womanizer and tortured artist. His high energy and solid voice add to his magic. If you saw him nail his role of Sky Masterson in “Guys and Dolls,” you will hear his talent hammer swing louder in this role. He is an an actor on the rise, and this show proves that.

Valenzuela is equally talented as the struggling wife of the great film maker who largely gave up her own acting career – and the idea of having a faithful marriage – for her husband’s fame.

Stealing the stage whenever he enters was Curtis Ganung as the young Guido in a series of flashbacks. His boyhood innocence screams for a hug when he is punished for seeking the ways of love with a professional gal – only to be caught by his mother and forced to seek forgiveness through prayer.

The show is not recommended for children since it contains adult situations concerning sexual themes and coarse language. The show runs Friday and runs Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through April 17.