I don’t know how you guys are handling the quarantine, but I personally am binging on TV series and livestreams of plays and oh, well, everything else that I’ve waved away with a „Maybe later, when I’ve got the time!”. And even though I’m not a big fan of biopics, the Fosse/Verdon (2019) miniseries was on my list ever since it came out. I like musicals, I like Cabaret and Chicago, but somehow, I always managed to (unconsciously) avoid getting familiar with Bob Fosse. I felt that there is something unpleasant in the kinds of images he constructs by sexualizing women, and, generally, even though many of his works are female-centric, he wasn’t at all convincing, to me. Well, things couldn’t have worked out better for me in the case of this miniseries. 

Fosse/Verdon, based on the mammoth 750-page-long biography of Sam Wasson and created by Steven Levenson and Thomas Kail, tells the story of Bob Fosse, an auteur that is seriously troubled and struggling with addictions, at his most prolific: after the colossal failure of his 1969 feature Sweet Charity (1969) he finds success with Cabaret (1972), Liza with a Z (1972!), Pippin (still 1972!!), Lenny (1974), Chicago (1975) and All That Jazz (1979), but in a fashion that is all mixed up, blown up by flashbacks and flashforwards set apart by intertitles with temporal cues (x hours until his death, y years since his last award, z months since his latest failure). The twist which the creators weave into the story of Bob Fosse, who has, admittedly, directed his fair share of autobiographical works (for example, All That Jazz, which is the story of an auteur that is seriously troubled and struggling with addictions, who is working simultaneously on a film and a series, a stressful situation made all the worse by this effort to juggle between relationships with a wife, a lover and his entire female cast), is to underline the influence that Gwen Verdon had on Fosse’s output. 

 Gwen Verdon is probably lesser-known – in our country, at least. Especially because her fame was owed to, and trapped in the bubble of the American musical scene. She had several leading roles in several musicals (Damn Yankees in 1957, New Girl in Town in 1958, Redhead in 1960, Sweet Charity in 1967) and very few films. Mainly, the only place where she can be witnessed at her full capacity is in the cinematic adaptation of Damn Yankees (1958, dir: George Abbott, Stanley Donen), in her performance of Fosse’s choreography in the iconic number Whatever Lola Wants and, together with Fosse, in Who’s Got the Pain?.

By the time that the two of them met (he was the choreographer for the musical parts of Damn Yankees), she was already a star with a faithful following, and he was a dancer that was taking his first steps in his choreography career. The power dynamic was clearly tipped in the favor of Verdon, and the miniseries follows how this status quo changes across the years, along with the trials and tribulations of their marriage and their sinuous careers. Although they ultimately broke up, the two never got divorced and have become one of those iconic couples, artistic duos that have constructed their careers together, being intimately linked together in their professional careers. 

That being said, Fosse is a name (a style, even an adjective, already) that has remained well-known, while Verdon’s name has lagged behind, a position which, on the other hand, she actively chose during her lifetime. In her interviews and statements, the actress usually paints herself as the witness of genius, a promoter of the legend (especially after his death), but never a co-creator. With the help of Nicole Fosse, the couple’s daughter, credited as the creative consultant and co-executive producer of the series, Fosse/Verdon traces an image of the actress as the help that the director-choreographer, and eminently troubled and imbalanced soul (as we are constantly retold), absolutely needs to be able to create. And, more so, she is an important agent in his work, not just as a „muse”, but also as a person that brings her own creative input into the process, a person which offers constant feedback and, oftentimes, a collaborator and co-creator of their common work. Vernon isn’t just the „muse” or „one of Fosse’s wives” anymore, she becomes his most important partner while he’s at the creative peak of his life. What needs to be said is that most of the director’s work that has remained iconic to this very day (Pippin, Cabaret, etc.) was created during their marriage. 

Another portrait emerges between the lines, and that is their daughter, Nicole, who grows up in the toxic environment of the two workaholics and who is constantly exposed to her father’s self-destructive attitude, which she slowly begins to emulate in time. A side-theme that is similarly explored in All That Jazz, a film that the miniseries doubtlessly emulates when it comes to its visual register and the themes that it approaches. 

 At this moment when television productions are increasingly ambitious in terms of stylistic and narrative approaches, Fosse/Verdon doesn’t set itself apart as a highly refined artistic product. That doesn’t mean that it lacks qualities: its atypical narrative structure is very well thought-out, many of the pastiches of Fosse’s most iconic moments in cinema are well-made, Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams’ performances are strong (even though a maybe a bit too strong in terms of emulation). But what the miniseries does best is to leave the old and tattered narration about the genius artist that is haunted by demons behind, offering it nuance by showing complex female portraits (especially Gwen, who oscillates between being a positive and charming figure, and resentful, manipulative and purely histrionic), through its discourse on male sexual abuse (the tipping point for Fosse’s self-destructive behavior, according to the narration), and, of course, by opening up the famous numbers of Fosse’s oeuvre into the stories of their genesis and by infusing them with real-life facts from the artists’ personal lives. 

 In a way, it helped me catch up on Bob Fosse (a figure which, due to his countless escapades with his own working actresses, is hard to swallow in a post-#MeToo era) through the women that surrounded him, though Charity (performed by Shirley Maclain), through Gwen Verdon, though Liza (the one from Cabaret, as well as the one in Liza with a Z) and had me digging through his filmography in search of all these incredible women, making me ask myself, what is a choreographer or a director without dancers and performers that are at least as good as he is. 

 Fosse/Verdon and All That Jazz are available on HBO GO.

Alex Mircioi

Film and theatre critic, sometimes dabbles in theatre-making. Has written and edited texts for Film Menu and Acoperișul de Sticlă, and collaborated with a number of other cultural publications like AperiTIFF, Scena9, All About Romanian Cinema and Film. Desperately in love with female filmmakers and writers, could always go for a queer coming-of-age.