Fosse/Verdon Review: Michelle Williams Is Brilliant

Though mega-creator Ryan Murphy has been stepping out on FX with Netflix recently, the network is trying to continue on in his tradition with a zesty, old-showbiz limited series lacquered with star power. That series is Fosse/Verdon—which is not part of Murphys Feud series (started, and maybe ended, with Bette and Joan), but rather a creation of Hamilton hit-makers Thomas Kail and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Dear Evan Hansen book writer Steven Levenson.

As glossy, though maybe less fabulous, as a top-tier Murphy production, Fosse/Verdon (premiering April 9) follows the romantic and creative entanglement of legendary director/choreographer Bob Fosse and his should-be-equally-legendary muse, Gwen Verdon. Theyre played by Sam Rockwell (a recent Oscar winner) and Michelle Williams (a four-time nominee), respectively, two signifiers that this is a real prestige package. Both Rockwell and Williams hold up their end of the bargain, even when the shows jumbled structure nearly sabotages the whole thing.

The big question about Fosse/Verdon is, really, who will watch it. Theater dweebs like myself will get a lot out of the series; though the first five episodes (out of eight) deal largely with filmmaking, theres still plenty of chum for Broadway obsessives who want a peek backstage. But how many theater geeks are out there, really? Beyond them, Im not sure Fosse/Verdon is sexy or sensational enough to capture the attention of other masses. Which I guess shouldnt really be the concern of a critic, or a review. Still, its hard to watch the series and not see its narrow appeal as a weakness; all of Fosse/Verdons theatrical gut-spilling will seem awfully lonely without a big, adoring crowd. Ah well. The theater people ought to like it, at least.

Roughly, Fosse/Verdon details the year in which Fosse went from celebrated New York choreographer to lauded film director, particularly with the Oscar-winning Cabaret. The series then ventures past that success, into the Lenny and Chicago years, when Fosses mental and physical health were unsteady and his relationship with Verdon, a four-time Tony-winning icon of musical theater, mutated from a loving marriage to a creative partnership complicated by personal resentments and the pressures of parenthood. (Fosse and Verdons daughter, Nicole Fosse, consulted on the series.)

The series lays all this out in less than linear fashion, jumping back and forth in chronology, while providing title cards to help locate us in time and place. Those aides do their job, for the most part, but its still hard to get a sense of traction in the first few episodes. Things have smoothed out by the end of episode five—an effective sort of bottle episode all taking place in a well-appointed Hamptons beach house—but the early stretches of the show really make you work to get invested. Which, again, makes it hard for me to imagine that anyone but the die-hard nerds will be engaged enough to stick with the series.

Those theater nerds are a little ill-served, though, by the imbalance of the shows portraiture—between Fosse and Verdon, but also between domestic drama and the study of an artform. There are certainly scenes set in rehearsal rooms and on sets, but those moments are rarer than scenes depicting Fosses relentless womanizing, or his fraught home life. (Which Verdon is relegated to more often than seems fair.) I want to see Fosse and Verdon really working together, the crunch and strain of the creative process as these two brilliant minds inspire and frustrate one another.

I get that this can sometimes be hard to capture compellingly on screen, but I think Fosse/Verdons lack of wonkiness has more to do with trying to court those non-theater fans. Yet, again, I dont see them showing up in droves anyway—so why not give the devoted what they want? It would be interesting in its own right to see that mechanical stuff, and it would give the show more texture, further illustrating why Fosse and Verdon were so important, together and as individuals. Wed care more about them if we could really see what made them geniuses.

The lead performances do a lot to make up for that, at least. Intense and mannered as he may be, Rockwell is still able to play Fosse with a looseness, a fluid humanity, that allows for kindness and decency amidst the flights of ego and torment. Ive grown tired of biopics about tortured Great (Straight) Men, because they all tend to be the same—onslaughts of misery and meanness, booze and cigarettes and disappointed, mistreated women. There is plenty of that in Fosse/Verdon, to be sure. But Rockwell is also careful to add some shading, to hit some notes a bit differently than expected. Rockwell doesnt create a monster, which is a relief.

Its Williams, though, who really lands. Her work on Fosse/Read More – Source

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