This month is the first Midnight Culture: Double Feature! With five Fridays in July, that means you get an extra week of culture and obsession and what better way to mark the first Midnight Double Feature than by exploring the legendary Broadway partnership of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon!
The first musical I fell in love with was Chicago, originally directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and starring Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart. I remember writing the title in my diary at seven years old, in bubble writing and drawing little lightbulbs in the space between the lines. I was obsessed with the film; Velma Kelly was my dream role and I used to be able to do the whole ‘I Can’t Do It Alone’ choreography on command. I’m now wondering how much of it I can still remember… hold on…
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Okay I’m back! Lyrics were a solid 90%, choreography 70%. In the words of Louie Spence ‘still got it, never lost it!’ Video is below if you want to have a go too!
Back in the day, one of the selling points of watching a DVD were the special features. Most DVD releases would come with a ‘Making Of’ featurette, a director’s commentary that you could set up to play over the film while you watched it and the deleted scenes where you could see what hadn’t made the theatrical cut. I watched the Chicago ‘Making Of’ potentially more times than I watched the actual film. As well as footage of Catherine Zeta Jones and Renée Zellweger marking choreography in wonderfully low-key noughties rehearsal gear, there was also a segment on the the history of the show including how the original production came about, and that is how I first heard of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon.
Anyone who has ever attended a Musical Theatre Summer School will have done the original Bob Fosse choreography to ‘All That Jazz,’ the super stylised, simplistic turn of the key on ‘Start the car’, tickling the top of your thigh as you pliés on ‘Roll your stockings down’ and the small hip roll and trembling hands on ‘Piano’s hot’. That routine is musical theatre iconography and just one of the many iconic numbers Bob Fosse worked on in the duration of his career. Famously, Fosse’s style was born out of his own limitations as a dancer, he was naturally turned in, with a stoop in his shoulders which led to the knock-kneed, contracted style of his choreography. He also often wore hats to cover his thinning hair and thus a Fosse routine is often recognised by the presence of a hat and cane. There isn’t a lot of footage of Fosse dancing but he is featured in the 1953 film, Kiss Me Kate as Hortensio and can be seen partnering Gwen Verdon in ‘Who’s Got the Pain,’ from Damn Yankees which was their first creative collaboration and one of the landmark moments in the FX series Fosse/Verdon.
Fosse/Verdon starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle William’s charts the enduring partnership between Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse. Told out of chronological order but time stamped in relation to landmark events, i.e: ‘New York City- 263 Days Since Gwen Verdon’s 1st Tony Award’ or ‘Munich- 16 Years Left’, we see how the pair are drawn to each other, creating a partnership that would lead to Verdon originating some of the most recognisable roles in Musical Theatre history such as Charity in Sweet Charity, Lola in Damn Yankees and of course Roxie Hart in Chicago. It also appears that without Gwen’s expertise Fosse would not have been able to find success as a director on films like Cabaret and Sweet Charity, and shows like Pippin and Chicago.
Fosse/Verdon depicts them as twin flames; two people who see the world in the same way and have a complete understanding of each other. By the very nature of setting each other on fire, romantically and professionally, at times the relationship is fraught. Fosse is portrayed as nursing a number of vices including issues with drugs and alcohol and an unhealthy relationship to sex which sees him continually cheating on Gwen with young dancers he is in rehearsals with. However, even after they separate, they continue to take refuge from the world in their creative work, bringing out the best in each other professionally, which is deliciously at odds with what they do to each other personally.
The non-linear time structure of the show demonstrates the push and pull in the relationship beautifully as the first episode ‘Life is a Cabaret’ opens with Fosse working on Cabaret and in desperate need of Gwen’s creative guidance, Gwen even has the line: ‘I just know how to speak Bob, it’s my native tongue’. By the end of the episode we know Bob is cheating on Gwen with the film’s translator and this sets the precedent for professional success and personal turmoil that runs throughout the series. I also want to take a moment to highlight the titles of each episode which are a song titles from their musicals such as ‘Where Am I Going?’ (Sweet Charity), ‘Nowadays (Chicago) and ‘Glory’ (Pippin). Not necessarily important but just a detail that I really enjoyed!
My favourite aspect of the show is the contrast between domestic life and the world of Broadway and showbiz. Verdon is depicted as a living embodiment of the phrase, ‘the show must go on’, while Fosse can only keep the facade going for so long before illness forces him to stop. In Episode Five, ‘Where Am I Going?’ the tension between performance and health reaches a breaking point. The principle characters are all in a house in the country, trapped by torrential rain which creates this atmospheric, claustrophobia. Gwen is wearing a great clip-in ponytail and legends like Paddy Chayefsky and Ann Reinking stalk between rooms with Gwen and Bob, their domestic drama pinned on whether Bob is well enough to simultaneously direct Lenny (which was nominated for six Academy Awards) and Chicago. This period in Fosse’s career is loosely fictionalised in Fosse’s Oscar winning film All That Jazz, which will feature next week!
Fosse/Verdon examines the connection between two people, of the possibility that there may be someone else on this planet who understands every crevice of your brain. We see behind the curtain at the creation of some of the biggest musicals in theatre history meeting icons like Liza Minelli and Chita Rivera, both portrayed with a slightly starry-eyed enthusiasm making them seem more like caricatures than real people, but through Michelle Williams and Sam Rockwell’s performances you get an insight into the personal turmoil that drove these lifetime collaborators to greatness.
Fosse/Verdon is currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
So that brings us to the end of Act I in this month’s Double Feature! For your interval entertainment enjoy this rare footage of Gwen Verdon performing ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now’ on The Ed Sullivan Show. ‘It was Ed Sullivan… every Sunday… like church!’. Leave a comment if you’ve clocked that reference! It is a stunning performance, perfectly demonstrating how Fosse’s choreography is always a continuation of a character’s emotional state, every gesture communicating something internal. Watch it here.
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