‘CHICAGO” director Rob Marshall can’t swing by a Broadway musical these days without triggering intense speculation he’s there to check out its big-screen potential.
And if he’s got Harvey Weinstein in tow, well, surely that should set off alarm bells.
Which is exactly what happened last Thursday night at a preview of “Nine,” the terrific musical by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit that is being given a spellbinding revival by the Roundabout Theater Co.
“Rob and Harvey are here!” exclaimed one top theater agent as he watched the two men who’ve injected new life into the movie musical take their seats just before the start of the show.
On the street during intermission, several very prominent theater people were trying, as unobtrusively as possible, to eavesdrop on their conversation.
We didn’t catch very much.
Yesterday, a secretary in Marshall’s office insisted the director was there simply to cheer on his friend Chita Rivera, who plays, fabulously, Lilliane La Fleur.
The assistant said it “was just a coincidence” that Harvey was there, too.
But what a coincidence. Not only were they both there on the same night, they were seated right next to each other!
Yeston said he had no idea they were coming to the show and that neither had approached him about turning “Nine” into a movie.
But the rights, he says, are available.
Nobody bothered to acquire them in 1982, when “Nine” won the Tony for Best Musical.
“The movie musical was dead then,” says Yeston. “There was no interest.”
But there should be now, especially since this revival, directed by David Leveaux and starring Antonio Banderas, is going to be the smash of the spring season.
“Nine” – which is based on “81/2,” Frederico Fellini’s great film about a famous movie director battling a creative dry spell – doesn’t open until tomorrow night.
But for about a week now, it’s been generating strong word of mouth in the theater industry and will surely shake up many a Tony Awards race.
Unless director Sam Mendes manages to channel the ghost of Jerome Robbins (or at least decides to use the great director’s original staging), “Gypsy” is going to be run over by “Nine” at the Tonys.
“La Boheme” will be, too, since the industry is not going to honor a show that’s struggling at the box office.
Think “Hairspray’s” Harvey Fierstein has a lock on the Tony for Best Actor?
Wait till voters get a look at the charismatic Banderas.
That race is going to be extremely tight.
Supporting actresses?
Tony nominators will pretty much be able to fill out the slate with the women of “Nine” – Rivera, Jane Krakowski, Mary Stuart Masterson, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Mary Beth Peil – each and every one a delight.
And I bet they’d be just as delightful in the movie, too – as soon as somebody acquires the rights.
