down.
The leads are played by two actors, Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams, who are never difficult to watch.
Rockwell’s Fosse slopes around the parties and sets, an endless fag hanging from the corner of his mouth,
berating dancers, singers, and costumes he thinks fall short of perfection. In flashbacks, he remembers his
own childhood, where he was taught to dance by teachers whose demands strayed into abuse. Fosse does
not apply the same exacting standards to his own fidelity. He is up for bedding everything in sight and in
the first episode wastes no time in tumbling a winsome German translator into his hotel room.
For all its gloss, the dancing and sets and costumes, at heart it is a study of the possibilities and limitations
of marriage
Williams is excellent. As you would expect from any respectable two-hander in 2019, Fosse/Vernon is at
pains to subvert the traditional tortured-genius-plus-long-suffering-spouse narrative. At first, her Verdon
seems to be enduring in silence, wearing a kind of clipped dignity as a mask, but as the show goes on we see
that their destructive influences work both ways.
Given these ingredients, the finished soup isn’t as satisfying as it ought to be. In part, it’s the structure,
which leaps around between decades and incidents like a showgirl. As the first episode opens, Fosse is old,
and Rockwell’s head covered with a bald suit, but soon we have jumped back to 1966, where Fosse is
directing Sweet Charity, his first major film and a major flop. Then it hops forward again to the filming of
Cabaret. Then back, then forward, gradually divulging its plot. Perhaps the idea is to echo the teasing
choreography he pioneered, where bodies seem to move against their own direction of travel. I’m sure it’s
clever, but it’s confusing, too.
During one scene in the first episode, Fosse tries to persuade Cabaret’s producer, Cy Feuer, that he is the
man to direct. Feuer disagrees. “This is an intimate musical drama, an adult picture,” he tells Fosse. “What
you do, and you do really well, is style. Flash.” For all its gloss, the dancing and sets and costumes, at heart
Fosse/Verdon is a study of the possibilities and limitations of marriage. It has all the right notes, but they’re
in the wrong order. It doesn’t need all that jazz.