Stunning? Brilliant? Best episode so far? I must be watching a different Fosse/Verdon. It was insufferable, and entire hour of yakking with every character coming off obnoxiously. Anyone who thinks this crap happened like this is living in a fool's paradise. Stunning. I can't even. Perhaps if they're trying to make a really good Days of Our Lives episode - because that's what this is - soap opera. And for all of you who think truth isn't important, that details aren't important, that because Nicole Fosse is a producer that that makes everything factual (as Bob and Gwen's close personal friend BrodyFosse keeps averring), I give you this - John Rubinstein was asked in a podcast on Broadway Stars his reaction to the Pippin episode. Here is the pertinent excerpt from what he wrote them:
"I have at this point watched the Pippin episode. Lots of stuff wrong there . . . but I was one of the committed watchers of "Smash" when it was on. Lots of friends in it, and good people, and it was a fun melodrama and a high-octane soap-opera. But I kept cringing and shouting out and being outraged at all the phony baloney they had in it -- and it was pure fiction, with no responsibility to tell any kind of truth -- but things that would NEVER happen in rehearsals, auditions, writers' rooms, performances, dressing-rooms, at parties, on breaks, you name it.….Watching the "Pippin" stuff last night, where so many things were wrong and never happened -- no girl dancer was ever cut from the "Manson Trio" because she had rejected Bob's advances; Anne Reinking was never put into that number to replace anyone, it was always Pam Sousa and Candy Brown. And Candy was never "late" or "behind the beat" as they had Sam keep yelling at her, BY NAME!!
Gwen never came to any "Pippin" rehearsals; she and Bob weren't together during that time. And if she had, she would NEVER in a million years have sat on the floor next to him while he was in the middle of rehearsing a number with dancers, and started nagging him about directing her in "Chicago"! Just wouldn't, and DIDN'T happen. She had too much respect for dancers, and him, and rehearsals in general. So stuff like that is hard to watch, even though it probably makes the story more dramatic or soapy or something, and doesn't bother anyone who wasn't there. And it's not a documentary, after all. But it is truly an out-of-body experience to watch a well-made, serious film about events that took place when one was in the room! Bizarre, nostalgic, but sort of deeply unpleasant at the same time. One wants them to at least get the facts right, and when they deliberately don't, there's a slight sense of invasion of privacy or something. Hard to describe. I can only imagine what, say, Hillary and Bill Clinton might think about the play that's on Broadway right now about them. Or what Alexander Hamilton might have thought about that musical on 46th Street!
I admire all the people involved with this "Fosse/Verdon" show, it looks and sounds great, and my quibbles are just details for sure. And Nicole [Fosse] is listed as a co-executive producer, so I'm sure she's given the green light to all this stuff. My main objections are what I wrote to you yesterday -- about Bob's sweet and funny nature being turned exclusively into darkness and dourness, and about the incorrect portrayal of him as so repeatedly stuck, unable to solve a problem or come up with an idea until Gwen does it for him and saves the day. That makes me mad. Otherwise . . . it's just showbiz."
Updated On: 5/8/19 at 06:11 PM
