Literally, the title “Fosse/Verdon” describes a long partnership, between choreographer-director Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) and dancer-actress Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams). It also implies a hierarchy — him first, her second — which set in as his career took off and their marriage fell apart.
And it captures the problem of the series “Fosse/Verdon,” which for all its technical panache, puts stage center an overfamiliar biopic story of a brilliant, difficult artist.
As the action begins, with the film shoot of Fosse’s 1969 bomb, “Sweet Charity,” the power dynamic is initially the opposite. Verdon is the celebrity; reviews blame the movie’s failure on her not playing the lead as she did on stage.
It’s Verdon who helps land her husband a second chance directing “Cabaret,” for which he won an Oscar. And as the production grows troubled, she smooths over his clashes with his producer Cy Feuer (Paul Reiser). “I just know how to speak Bob,” she tells Cy. “It’s my native tongue.”
There are the seeds of an intriguing story here, about the compromises of artistic partnership, particularly for the women who end up effacing themselves for the comfort and success of the men in their lives. This theme is paralleled in family friend Joan Simon (Aya Cash), who gave up a dance career so her husband, playwright Neil (Nate Corddry), wouldn’t have to “play wife at a cocktail party.”
In its detail-rich recreation of period showbiz, “Fosse/Verdon” — whose producers include Thomas Kail, Steven Levenson, Joel Fields and Lin-Manuel Miranda — might recall Ryan Murphy’s “Feud: Bette and Joan.” But the relationship isn’t a war so much as an intricate dance.
Verdon isn’t portrayed as a doormat but as an artist making trade-offs to serve her vision. Williams transforms remarkably, with a performance always conscious of the effort and microadjustments it takes Verdon not to lose herself in partnership and parenting. (Fosse and Verdon’s daughter, Nicole Fosse, serves as a producer and consultant.)
Fosse — rendered by Rockwell with intense mutters and tics and an edge of sadness — isn’t presented as monstrous so much as myopic, so preoccupied by his drive that he can’t see past the end of his own nose, or, as his philandering increases, other appendages. This is their unequal burden: He seems never to think beyond himself; she can never stop thinking of everything and everyone.
But as his career takes off, the series’ attention shifts to the old, sad soft-shoe of fame gone sour. There are women; there are pills; there are flashbacks to Fosse as a young dancer pushed to the breaking point. His frenzied tap dancing becomes a stressed-out leitmotif: slapping on tables, rapping on doors, clapping to indicate the cuts while editing a film, tap-tap-tap-tap.
This may be crazy talk, but usually the most interesting thing about artists is their art. Yes, it’s tough to dramatize creativity, but “Fosse/Verdon,” given such visual subject matter, should have a reasonable shot at it.
We get a glimpse of the pair’s intellectual sync as Verdon coaches dancers through a sequence: “It’s not a seduction; it’s a con job.” And the series emphasizes how Fosse’s choreography — all those bent bodies and splayed hands — could use delightful motion to convey agony, as in “Who’s Got the Pain?” from “Damn Yankees,” portrayed as a kind of subliminal horror number.
“Fosse/Verdon” becomes overwhelmed by the pain, hitting every signpost of too-much-too-fast breakdown stories, an avalanche of awards trophies and bottles of Seconal. Verdon becomes professionally lost, and her character often recedes. The series is based on the biography “Fosse” by Sam Wasson, and it has the feel of a Fosse story to which the “/Verdon” was appended. (The third episode delves into her early life, steering hard into melodrama.)
There’s something vampiric about Fosse, as his previous wife, Joan McCracken (Susan Misner), describes it: “He takes what’s special in a girl and makes it his own.” This often extended to predatory relationships with his female cast members. “Fosse/Verdon” is conscious of this but also feels burdened by the responsibility to indict him, which only makes it more heavy-handed.
But the show is still something to look at. A re-creation of Liza Minnelli’s “Mein Herr” from “Cabaret” is a sexy, terrifying, centrifugal whirl. The fourth episode, centered on Fosse’s production of “Pippin,” ends with a musical interlude likening him to that show’s self-absorbed protagonist. It’s both terrible and amazing, thematically bludgeoning but audacious and emotional.
The last and best of the five episodes screened for critics slows down to focus on a nostalgic beach weekend with old friends and new lovers. Verdon tells Fosse’s new partner, actress and dancer Ann Reinking (Margaret Qualley), that she needs “to pull him back when he goes too far” and “remember, it isn’t personal.” Reinking is appalled: “So that’s my job? To keep him alive?” Says Verdon, “It’s worth it.”
Is it? The episode, written by Charlotte Stoudt, doesn’t telegraph an answer; it just paints in full two talented women caught in Fosse’s gravitational field and lets them speak. It’s subtle in the ways the preceding four hours aren’t, a character piece set in the ’70s that feels like a character film made in the ’70s.
It’s a glimpse of what “Fosse/Verdon” might have been, if it were less attached to its showbiz-downfall template. This series tap-dances as fast as it can, often stunningly. But look past its sleek moves and what you’re mostly left with, in a #MeToo era, is another #HimAgain? story.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.