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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Fosse (book review)

Bob Fosse was talented, driven, kind, nasty, dedicated, unfaithful, brilliant, limited, addicted, and unhappy. By all accounts, he was also charismatic, seductive, and a great lay. Since the reader doesn't get to sleep with him, he is a largely unpleasant companion for the 590 pages of Sam Wasson's exhaustive, repetitive, and annoying biography, Fosse. However, if you keep your bullshit detector turned to "high"--Wasson is fond of recreating conversations as though he was there; he thinks he knows what Fosse was thinking at any given moment; his interpretations of events are unconvincing--Fosse is worth reading. As for Fosse the man: hey, Gwen Verdon and Ann Reinking worshipped him, so who am I to judge?

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