“Inside “Fosse”‘s Surreal Dream Sequence

I find watching “Fosse/Verdon” a bit dreary, but I liked last night’s fourth episode. It wrapped up on a rousing and surreal musical number that is unlike any other in the show to date, largely because it’s not real. Rather, it’s playing out inside the increasingly unsettled mind of Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell), who in the final months of 1973 is coming off a year of unprecedented career highs, yet finds himself at an equally unprecedented psychological low. Fosse’s suicidal thoughts are brought to life in a medley of songs taken directly from Stephen Schwartz’s Broadway musical Pippin — the show Fosse was working on at the time — performed by Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams), Paddy Chayefsky (Norbert Leo Butz) and Ben Vereen (Ahmad Simmons) alongside a quartet of Broadway dancers.

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