Anyone attending Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ hoping to get a fresh gander at adored numbers like “Steam Heat” or “Rich Man’s Frug“ or “All That Jazz” or you-name-it – that’s to say, anyone waiting with bated breath for this supposed salute to eight-time Tony-winning choreographer Bob Fosse – is best advised to have second thoughts. Nothing like those kinds of re-creations is coming your way.
What’s on offer instead in today’s Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ is perhaps best explained by Wayne Cilento, the production’s director and stager, who recently told an interviewer he’s honored to bring an updated version (hardly a revival) of the 1978 Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ that’s “fit for this generation.”
“Fit for this generation”! Isn’t that a warning for anyone around during Fosse’s 1927-87 generations? Another subtler warning could be that the “Bob Fosse’s” on the program’s cover and title page appears in smaller type size and dimmer font than the bold-faced “Dancin’.” Fosse seems to be disappearing, as if the designer had some misplaced prescience.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
This disappointed Fosse fan will explain in depth farther down but first wants to praise the unquestionable pinnacle Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ reaches from start to finish: the dancers. They represent the corps Fosse himself would likely have tipped his weathered fedora hat to for their individual flare, their energy, their stamina, their 100% commitment, their drop-dead physiques.
They are, in alphabetical order and bouquets to them all: Ioana Alfonso, Yeman Brown, Peter John Chursin, Dylis Croman, Jòvan Dansberry. Karli Dinardo, Aydin Eyikan, Pedro Garza (on for Tony d’Alelio), Jacob Guzman, Manuel Herrera, Afra Hines, Gabriel Hyman, Kolton Krouse, Mattie Love, Yani Marin, Nando Morland, Khori Michelle Petinaud, Ida Saki, and Ron Todorowski. Though there’s no first among equals – let alone no first, second or third – Chursin, Croman, Dinardo, Herrera, Krouse deserve call-outs.
Now to the less sanguine news: When Cilento expresses concern for “this generation,” it may be that he’s recognizing how musicals – even this plotless one – are geared up when amplification is such a contemporarily advanced element. And I don’t mean amplification as introduced by David Merrick for Anna Maria Alberghetti as Lili in 1961’s Carnival.
I’m talking about the heightened amplification that thunders from musical stages all over town nowadays and is all but thoroughly practiced here by sound designer Peter Hylenski. No criticism aimed directly at him, however, when he may only be adhering to Cilento and the squad who have structured – that’s to say restructured – Fosse’s works. These include Christine Colby Jacques for reproduction of the dances, Corrine McFadden Herrera for additional reproduction, Jim Abbott for orchestrations and music supervision, David Dabbon for new music and dance arrangements, and music director Justin Hornback, who doesn’t make a point of keeping the horns back.
It looks as if all of them have colluded with Cilento to show that the Fosse for this generation is not unlike a choreographing Hannibal crossing the Alps. The result is less tribute than travesty. Cilento and dance associates have carefully taken many of the Fosse signature moves – the pelvis thrust, the hip roll, the shoulder hitch, the seminal Pippin stance with flexed foot, the slowly heavenward-extended arms, the flared-fingers bowler-doffing, – and blown them up in a series of sequences that shout, scream and screech, “Here’s Bob Fosse not on ash-heavy cigarettes but inhaling this generation’s more mood-expanding stimulants.”
As a result, certain observations of the Fosse technique need to be made about his indubitably flashy routines. He reveled in dance as, more often than not, sexual expression. It could be said that the most apt adjective to nail his outcomes – which almost always conjure reflections of any city’s redlight district – is “louche.” But Fosse’s louche was built on sophistication, wit, humor, emotion, on elegant sleaze. It’s louche with a knowing sidelong glance. It’s louche with tongue lodged puckishly in cheek.
But this 2023 Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ arrives when sophistication is considered hifalutin, when wit is a dimming talent, when humor has nothing to do with nuance, when blatant is applauded, when outright emotion can register as embarrassing, when elegance is thought phony and only unmasked sleaze remains.
And there lies the myriad reimagined Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ sections, the quintessential one being Cilento’s shaping (bloating?) of first-act closer “Big Noise From Winnetka.” “Big noise” is the order of the evening and matinee – bigger and bigger and yet bigger noise. Second-act opener is “Sing, Sing, Sing,” that in 1935 boosted Benny Goodman’s career. Goodman managed to keep his early big band intonation thrilling yet contained, whereas Cilento – with marvelous Gary Seligson drumming (thinking of Gene Krupa’s licks?) – lumbers the number with rock-concert decibel level.
Occasionally, events do quiet down. There’s a pleasant interlude featuring Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mister Bojangles,” danced by Jacob Guzman and Yeman Brown, but even then the singing is goosed volume. Also, the lyric “his dog up and died” is missing. Too embarrassingly emotional? Too insufficiently computerized?
During Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ there’s dialogue introducing segments identified as, among them, “Percussion,” “Big City Mime,” “Joint Endeavors” (it’s a pun), “America” (intended as satire), and Big Deal (recalling a large Fosse flop). Some of the chats are intended to be informative, although learning that “Dancers love to dance” doesn’t entirely qualify as breaking news.
Maybe the most encouraging Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ word to get across is that it has been conjured for two diverse audiences: 1) die-hard Fosse-ites happy to see Fosse no matter how he’s conveyed; and 2) those who’ve never seen Fosse’s shows and assume this is what they looked and sounded like. Which they didn’t. So, possibly this is not such an encouraging word, after all?
One last takeaway: For “The Female Star Spot,” four female dancers and one male come out to bemoan the pressures inflicted on the leading ladies of musicals. Or could the reference be to one very particular leading lady: Gwen Verdon, on whom Fosse choreographed some of his most enchanting items. Other than (maybe?) here, Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ ignores lithe, twinkle-eyed, charismatic Verdon. The (deliberate?) oversight has the probably unintentional effect of confirming what was often said of her. She was unique, inimitable. What might she have thought of this dubious enterprise?
Dancin’ opened March19, 2023, at the Music Box Theatre. Tickets and information: dancinbway.com
