"I don't think you've heard a word I've said all night," says the frustrated wife to her distracted husband. Indeed, coming right after the deafening roar of a low-flying plane, whatever she said immediately before this has been rendered unintelligible. It's a comic moment -- if unintentionably so -- heard at a recent performance of Starlight Theatre's current production of "Nine."

Of course, performance-freezing planes are nothing new at the company's Balboa Park home, and truth be told, directors Brian Wells and Carlos Mendoza's staging of the 1982 musical is about as good at Starlight gets these days.

There's not a great deal of substance in Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit's musical adaptation of Federico Fellini's 1963 film, "8 1/2." Making substantial use of flashbacks to tell the story of Fellini's fictional alter ego Guido Contini and a crippling case of director's block, what it lacks in dramatic thrust it more than makes up for in style.

It was the splashy style of director Tommy Tune that catapulted the original Broadway production to five Tony Awards, besting its main competition, "Dreamgirls," in several categories (including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Direction).

Messrs. Wells and Mendoza seems to have followed more closely the spare style of David Leveaux's 2003 Broadway revival. Set designer Terry McCambridge (whose central catwalk looks suspiciously like the same piece used in Starlight's last two season closers, "Ragtime" and "Urinetown") has fashioned a white circular dais that, when lined up with a short matching staircase and viewed from above, becomes a visual representation of the show's title numeral.

Jason Bieber's largely colorless lighting works for maximum effect here, paired as it is with Tanya Bishop's array of sleek, Euro-chic costumes.

Playing the central figure of Guido Contini is Colombian-born actor (and twin brother of co-director Carlos) Mauricio Mendoza. Though Mr. Mendoza struggles at times with the vocal demands of the role and doesn't approximate an Italian accent any more than did his Broadway predecessors Raul Julia and Antonio Banderas, he cuts an appealing figure that, most importantly, believably draws in the 13 women of the cast.

Among those women is Amy Ashworth Biedel (as loving wife Luisa), Stephanie Burkett Gerson (as suicidal mistress Carla), Gail Bennett (as favorite leading lady Claudia), and Leigh Scarritt (as demanding French producer Liliane La Fleur).

Mr. Yeston's songs for Luisa lie comfortably in Ms. Biedel's more seldom-heard lower range (as in the explanatory, wistful "My Husband Makes Movies"), and Ms. Bennett gives splendid voice to the score's most well-known song, "Unusual Way."

Ms. Scarritt brings a circus showman's (showwoman's?) presence to Liliane's "Folies Bergères," paired with Carolyn Stevenson's contrapuntal backup as dominatrix-clad Stephanie Necrophorus.

Leigh Scarritt and Carolyn Stephenson

Copyright©2008 Ken Jacques

In the role that won Jane Krakowski a Tony in the recent Broadway revival, it's Ms. Gerson (recently seen as the Narrator in Moonlight's "Joseph"), though, that creates the most memorable impression, breaking free from her saccharine, G-rated Biblical persona to fill Carla's fashionable Italian pumps. In "A Call from the Vatican," the sexy Ms. Gerson proves that one doesn't even need the high-tech gimmicky staging of Mr. Leveaux's production to make the number swoon-worthy.

"Nine" may not be as well known yet as Mr. Yeston's later works, "Phantom" and "Titanic" (though that will surely change when the starry film adaptation is released next year). It hasn't even been seen in San Diego since the national tour stopped at the Fox Theatre for a week back in 1984. It's certainly not the most dramatic musical, either, but it proves to be a welcome adult-minded respite from Starlight's usual family-friendly fare.