All That Jazz
Aug. 31st, 2019 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessFosse/Verdon 1.5 Where am I Going? (catch-up)
This was more like one of those straight plays that these musical people have problems with, bookended by Gwen and Nicole visiting a catatonic Bobby at the mental institution and a title card informing us that his decision to do a movie and a stage musical at the same time was 13 months before a heart attack.
In between, we had a set-up that could work on stage, a group of adults, most of them grieving Joan Simon’s death, the host telling everyone he was Fine, Happy and Healthy!Bobby, three months after being in a mental institution after a suicide attempt, showing off his new, younger girlfriend – oh, Anne, you seem too nice, what are you doing with him? At least she was asking the same question. Gwen had also brought her well-adjusted younger (?) boyfriend along. Plus there was Nicole, still a little kid, slightly bored and lightly supervised, all stuck in a ‘seaside cottage’’ for a night by the rain.
It helps that Rockwell and Williams are brilliant performers. We only had the one flashback to how he lost his virginity, told as a tale of braggadocio to other men, but if he was thirteen (not that much older than Nicole!) it was child abuse. And he barely had a breather between that memory hitting him and a bruising encounter with Gwen, who really really wanted him to do Chicago with her, in front of his new girlfriend. And that’s not even to mention the ex sex and the acting as if everything was normal, not as fake as Gwen’s ponytail, laced with sincere grief for Joan. No, there were flashbacks of her and what she’d meant to Gwen. There was also a song at a piano from Gwen, the title song, in fact, and there was the knowledge that Chicago was going to be very good – it’s one of the things I associated their names with - but now a better idea of what the price of creating it would be.
1.6 All I Care About Is Love (watched live)
Back to normal, more or less, for which I was grateful. The continuity announcer was listing all the reasons why this is on past the watershed, and I was going, ‘But will there be musical numbers?’ Well, we had the rehearsal of All That Jazz, but the main fantasy sequence involved Fosse himself taking Lenny Bruce’s role (or ‘Dustin Hoffman’ as Lenny) and delivering a grim stand-up routine about his life now (frenetic) and as a child dancer (abusive). Thinking on it, though, the flashbacks mainly expanded on what we knew/suspected. The idea was that he was processing all this, I guess.
They’ve recast Nicole. She is now blonde!?!
So, yeah, Fosse was doing too much – the movie had overrun and he was trying to edit it to a near deadline while being hounded about Chicago with rehearsals about to begin, and a dozen other things betimes. He medicated his coughing fits with cigarettes (and medicated with the impressive list Gwen spouted out.)
The more interesting stuff was in the now – proof positive of how Gwen Verdon got ‘final say’ written into her contract in her negotiation of the hospital room. How both she and Anne claimed that they were Bobby’s wife at the hospital, and Gwen was the one who convinced even Anne. After all, shouldn’t the girlfriend stay with him and the ex-wife look after their daughter? Well, on the face of it, yes. But it was Gwen he wanted there, not his (much younger) girlfriend seeing him in a hospital bed after the heart attack. And then there was the tragedy of Gwen making her daughter up so she looked 18 and passing her off as one of Fosse’s protégés (wink wink nudge nudge) – but what Gwen has with Bobby is special! - or the tragic-awful demand for sex from Annie in his hospital bed a few days after major surgery.
Also, Holliday Grainger was on the radio yesterday, saying they're about to start filming the next Strike adaptation soon!
This was more like one of those straight plays that these musical people have problems with, bookended by Gwen and Nicole visiting a catatonic Bobby at the mental institution and a title card informing us that his decision to do a movie and a stage musical at the same time was 13 months before a heart attack.
In between, we had a set-up that could work on stage, a group of adults, most of them grieving Joan Simon’s death, the host telling everyone he was Fine, Happy and Healthy!Bobby, three months after being in a mental institution after a suicide attempt, showing off his new, younger girlfriend – oh, Anne, you seem too nice, what are you doing with him? At least she was asking the same question. Gwen had also brought her well-adjusted younger (?) boyfriend along. Plus there was Nicole, still a little kid, slightly bored and lightly supervised, all stuck in a ‘seaside cottage’’ for a night by the rain.
It helps that Rockwell and Williams are brilliant performers. We only had the one flashback to how he lost his virginity, told as a tale of braggadocio to other men, but if he was thirteen (not that much older than Nicole!) it was child abuse. And he barely had a breather between that memory hitting him and a bruising encounter with Gwen, who really really wanted him to do Chicago with her, in front of his new girlfriend. And that’s not even to mention the ex sex and the acting as if everything was normal, not as fake as Gwen’s ponytail, laced with sincere grief for Joan. No, there were flashbacks of her and what she’d meant to Gwen. There was also a song at a piano from Gwen, the title song, in fact, and there was the knowledge that Chicago was going to be very good – it’s one of the things I associated their names with - but now a better idea of what the price of creating it would be.
1.6 All I Care About Is Love (watched live)
Back to normal, more or less, for which I was grateful. The continuity announcer was listing all the reasons why this is on past the watershed, and I was going, ‘But will there be musical numbers?’ Well, we had the rehearsal of All That Jazz, but the main fantasy sequence involved Fosse himself taking Lenny Bruce’s role (or ‘Dustin Hoffman’ as Lenny) and delivering a grim stand-up routine about his life now (frenetic) and as a child dancer (abusive). Thinking on it, though, the flashbacks mainly expanded on what we knew/suspected. The idea was that he was processing all this, I guess.
They’ve recast Nicole. She is now blonde!?!
So, yeah, Fosse was doing too much – the movie had overrun and he was trying to edit it to a near deadline while being hounded about Chicago with rehearsals about to begin, and a dozen other things betimes. He medicated his coughing fits with cigarettes (and medicated with the impressive list Gwen spouted out.)
The more interesting stuff was in the now – proof positive of how Gwen Verdon got ‘final say’ written into her contract in her negotiation of the hospital room. How both she and Anne claimed that they were Bobby’s wife at the hospital, and Gwen was the one who convinced even Anne. After all, shouldn’t the girlfriend stay with him and the ex-wife look after their daughter? Well, on the face of it, yes. But it was Gwen he wanted there, not his (much younger) girlfriend seeing him in a hospital bed after the heart attack. And then there was the tragedy of Gwen making her daughter up so she looked 18 and passing her off as one of Fosse’s protégés (wink wink nudge nudge) – but what Gwen has with Bobby is special! - or the tragic-awful demand for sex from Annie in his hospital bed a few days after major surgery.
Also, Holliday Grainger was on the radio yesterday, saying they're about to start filming the next Strike adaptation soon!
