Cher turns into C-3PO. A Russian nesting doll becomes a row of dancing Cossacks.
Because a large number of Ennio's targets are singers (Tina Turner, Gloria Gaynor, the Three Tenors, to name a few), he spends a good deal of time strutting or slinking around the stage, through color-saturated spotlights, while lip-syncing to blasts of peppy music.

Due no doubt to the intricacies of the costumes, it's not a continuous performance: The artist runs through two or three incarnations, and then, under cover of a blackout, slips offstage to collect another outfit. It's Ovid's "Metamorphoses" for the attention-deficit era.
In its best sequences, "Ennio" lures the audience into moments of arch recognition.

An Indian dancer mutates into a bored-looking Norah Jones (coy nod to the fact that Jones's father is celebrated sitar player Ravi Shankar). Celine Dion warps into the Titanic (coy nod to the soundtrack for the James Cameron movie). A capering rendition of the Gnarls Barkley song "Crazy" morphs into a van Gogh impression, complete with a painted sunflower and a lopped-off ear.

Other segues seem more random: While Gene Kelly is prancing through "Singin' in the Rain," he makes a few adjustments to his suit and -- presto! -- he's Stevie Wonder caroling "Isn't She Lovely?" Why, you ask?

Heck, why not?
Frustratingly, though, Ennio and co-director Sosthen Hennekam have made no effort to build momentum or to create overarching narrative continuity, so the production feels like a grab-bag of animated snippets.
Judging by the rhapsodic reactions on opening night, some audiences will find this hit-or-miss surrealism utterly charming.

Others might feel that the show makes its point in the first 15 minutes, and that everything afterward is just more of the same (a flaw that other world-traveled, non-language-oriented acts, such as "Stomp" and Blue Man Group, arguably avoid).
As the flotsam and jetsam of discarded costume elements build up on the stage, it's tempting to speculate about the backstage labor that makes "Ennio" possible. Who picks up the littered paper and inventories it?

Who folds the costumes back into their initial shapes? How much Scotch tape is required every night?
And perhaps most tellingly: Do the workers ever feel that their artistic world is, well, a little flat?

Ennio, original concept, Ennio Marchetto; design and direction, Marchetto and Sosthen Hennekam; lighting and sound design, Hennekam. About 70 minutes. Through June 10 at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St.

SW. Call 202-488-3300 or visit

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