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[0:00] Moe Brady: You're listening to Fosse/Verdon from The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I'm Moe Brady.

[0:12] Aaron Albano: And I'm Aaron Albano.

[0:21] Moe Brady: Welcome listeners to our miniseries, recapping episodes of FX's Emmy-winning limited series Fosse/Verdon. In the show, we see an inside look into two time periods on Broadway, a literally more historic Broadway where the characters reside, but hidden under that layer we find today's Broadway, through which our modern artists interpret that story. We're going back episode by episode to see how this love letter to vintage Broadway tells us greater truths about the industry. So let's dive in and talk about episode four, which is so good. Glory. Aaron, give us those stats.

[0:55] Aaron Albano: Love me too, Moe. Glory premiered on April 30, 2019, and marked the halfway point to the acclaimed miniseries. It was written by Tracy Scott Wilson and directed by Jessica Yu. We see two moments of choreography in this episode. The first is the rehearsal sequence featuring the infamous Manson Trio, originally choreographed by Fosse and reconstructed by Lloyd Culbreath and Pam Sousa. The second is the Nightmare Pippin medley that acts as the finale to the episode, choreographed by Joan McCracken herself, Susan Misner. All of our music this episode comes from the musical Pippin, with all music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. The cast of Pippin features Ahmaud Simmons as Ben Vereen, Lindsay Nicole Chambers as Leland Palmer, Bahia Hiba as Candy Brown, and Alexis Cara as the fictional Sherry, said to be based on the experiences of original cast member Jennifer Nairn-Smith. Also in the cast are Nina Lafarga, Peter Churson, Paloma Garcia-Lee, Tessa Grady, Colin Bradbury, Michael Hartung, Raymond Baynard, and Michael MacArthur.

[1:56] Moe Brady: The viewership dipped again after last week. The live viewership came in at 429,000, while DVR came in at 480,000. The total viewership amounted to 910,000 viewers, 49,000 fewer than the previous episode. And what happens in this episode, Mo?

[2:13] Aaron Albano: At the premiere of his film Cabaret, Bob is weighed down by the memory of his flop, Sweet Charity, from three years earlier. But when the reviews come in, they call Cabaret a masterpiece, meaning Bob has a blank check in the entertainment industry. So in the rehearsal room for Pippin, Bob follows his gut. Calling the script boring and small, he chooses to blow the whole thing up by demanding script changes and conspicuously sleeping with the entire female ensemble. That is, except for the one dancer avoiding his advances, a young woman named Annie Reinking. Gwen drops by Pippin rehearsal to confide in Bob that her show is in trouble, but he finds himself too wrapped up in his own career to make time for hers.

Gwen is ready to move on to the next project, and has already secured the rights to turn the play Chicago into a musical. But Bob has a lot of job offers after this and can't guarantee Chicago is the next thing he wants to do. On top of that, things are slipping away in Gwen's personal life as her best friend Joan Simon is in the hospital with only a month to live. Bob is pressuring the authors to change the ending of Pippin, for the title character to choose lighting himself on fire rather than fall in love. He's also making his power known in courting the female ensemble, taking away a featured spot in the show's Manson trio from a dancer who won't sleep with him and giving it to Annie, who knows she doesn't have to visit his hotel room to get the solo.

Months later, Bob calls Gwen at 3 AM asking her to come to Washington DC and help him fix the end of the show, but in bed with her new boyfriend, she hangs up on him. And in the following year, as he racks up Tony, Emmy, and Oscar awards for Best Direction, he conspicuously thanks a good friend of mine, Gwen Verdon, for her contributions. But it's been 13 years since she won her last Tony award, and spending time at home with their daughter just isn't enough for a woman who won't rest until she knows she can have it all. Bob is on a downward spiral, though. Much like the title character of Pippin, Bob is looking for something fulfilling, completely fulfilling. In a fever dream, Ben Vereen, Patty, Gwen, and his female conquests taunt Bob to jump out of his hotel room window, with Gwen saying, the ones who die young, they're the ones who live forever. If you do this, you'll eclipse me, you'll eclipse everyone. It's only the thought of their daughter, Nicole, that keeps him from jumping, much to the chagrin of the voices in his head.

[4:35] Moe Brady: Okay, episode four. This episode is so good. Okay, before we go, listeners, just so you know, I think you figured out by now if you've listened to me at all. When Aaron says, I don't know Pippin that well, that's code for Aaron doesn't know Pippin at all. And so, I feel like this episode echoes Pippin a lot more than I realize. Is that true?

[5:06] Aaron Albano: Yes and no. Definitely the ending does. Pippin's about a man who has his life ahead of him, and he feels like he's very special and should be doing very special things with his life. So he tries going to war, he tries a lot of sexual conquests, and eventually his last try is really falling in love before he realizes none of them are completely fulfilling. And then faced with the opportunity to light himself on fire and go down in a blaze of glory, he gives up on his dreams and decides to settle for a romantic partner. Oh, so there, yes, there's lots of devices on top of it. But basically, this guy thinks it's really special trying all these special things. I wouldn't say it's a particularly great structure to a musical. But the parallels from this episode to the show are very significant.

[6:05] Moe Brady: Sure, right. At the beginning, we're hearing the underscoring to Corner of the Sky, which is the song from Pippin, the second song for Pippin, where Pippin says, I'm special, and I got to find something really special to do with my life. And that definitely feels like what Bob is saying, right? He's saying, we're going to blow this whole thing up. I'm going to follow my gut. I'm going to make it into something really interesting and fulfilling.

[6:29] Aaron Albano: Well, I mean, the entire episode, Bob is obsessed with accomplishments, conquests. I mean, for lack of a better word, like conquests in his career, conquests sexually, conquests everything. It's Bob's Pippin.

[6:41] Moe Brady: Yes. And in the show, Catherine, the potential romantic partner that comes in, is replaced in this version by Nicole. Catherine is the character who sings, I guess I'll miss the man. Here we have Nicole. So it's not a romantic love. It is the non-sexually charged love. Okay, that all makes sense. Okay, cool. Thank you for catching me up. And we will get into a lot more of that as we go. Okay, we've seen many instances where this show uses Tappit as a device of storytelling. And I was it's time to talk about the Tappit. For me, and tell me if you disagree, the Tappit always comes in when the things that he's doing are on the precipice of failing. The first time we see it in this episode, it's when he's in the lobby of the movie theater at the premiere of Cabaret.

He's terrified that it's going to go poorly, because if his legacy falls now, it's going to all crumble around him. And then it doesn't. Because it's interesting how up to this point, all the flashes to that point in his life are all the Tappit. And then all of the flashes from then on, from like Cabaret on, are him taking in the applause. And we never hear the Tappit again.

[8:02] Aaron Albano: No? Yes?

[8:03] Moe Brady: Yeah. It sounds like a stopwatch to me. It's very staccato and rhythmic. You get the sense that time is running out.

[8:08] Aaron Albano: Yeah. I didn't notice that that stopped happening on the other side of the Cabaret film. Interesting. I'm sure it'll come back. Time will tell, and we'll talk about it more when it does. Can we talk about Ahmaud Simmons real quick?

[8:22] Moe Brady: Let's talk about Ahmaud Simmons all day. I literally just cleared my schedule just to talk about Ahmaud Simmons. Ahmaud is so good as Ben Vereen. It's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It's amazing how much charisma that man has. I think there's a lot of really great performances in the company of Pippin. And it's fun to see the parallels between people playing people as winnowing itself down. We've got Nina LaFarga playing Pam Sousa, who is actually in the room staging the recreation of her original choreography.

[8:59] Aaron Albano: Yeah, that's so cool!

[9:01] Moe Brady: Yeah, totally. And we get introduced to Margaret fucking Qualley as Anne Ranking. Such an interesting middle name. It's on her birth certificate. She's so good. I mean, I've been a huge fan of Margaret Qualley anyway. And then watching her in this.

[9:16] Aaron Albano: What are you a fan of Margaret Qualley? This is the only thing I know.

[9:22] Moe Brady: I saw her in this. I saw her in The Leftovers. She's done plenty more.

[9:27] Aaron Albano: Correct, correct. But especially in this. I love it when you... Same thing goes for Sam Rockwell in last episode. When these people can not only deliver as actors, but then they can also deliver as... They're delivering the musical theater go.

[9:39] Moe Brady: Yeah, in more triple threat ways than we expected from them. And for this show to be about one or possibly two of the most triple threat-y people that we know in this industry, it feels appropriate and honoring their memory that these people were cast in this show. On the other hand, in a way of non-honoring, there is so much Me Too in this episode, I could vomit. It is so gross. It is so gross the way that women are treated on this show. It makes me so angry. My God. I get it. It's a different time, but it's like... I keep wanting there to be a get out and stay out moment, you know, back to episode two. You want the women to stand up and say, I don't need you anymore. And we don't get that. And in fact, in this episode, we get the opposite of that.

[10:30] Aaron Albano: Correct. We get the dancer who got pulled out of the Manson Trio because she wouldn't... She wouldn't put out. And then this oppressive industry made her go back and do it. And who knows if that's true? Again, Mo and I, a long time ago, said that we're not going to comment on the factual things, like the fact or fiction stuff about this show. We're just going off of what is presented to us on the show. So who knows if the character of Sherry, her real life counterpart, if this actually happened or not? We don't know.

[11:03] Moe Brady: Yeah. It is interesting because so many of the characters have real life actor names, right? We said Nina Lafarga is playing Pam, who is Pam Sousa, who was in the original company of Pippin, right? Margaret Qualley playing Anne Rankin, same thing. And yet there's no real life parallel for the name Sherry.

[11:21] Aaron Albano: No, I mean, and that's purposefully so. I mean, again, I did a cursory search, and we know the story that it's based off of Jennifer Nairn-Smith, who was in the original company of Pippin. But the word for word, page for page, scene to scene accuracy, I don't know. I hope not. But, you know, at the same time, this is a different life and who am I to comment on someone else's actions. But in this dramatization of what went down, it makes us really wish that this industry was not like this.

[11:56] Moe Brady: Let's keep talking about how horrible men are. Okay, so in our discussion of is Bob the puppet master or Gwen, we have cemented.

[12:07] Moe Brady: Solidified the fact that Bob is the head bitch in charge. Bob becomes a fucking monster. He gets some goddamn awards and all of a sudden he becomes a gross theater person. Yeah. Gwen can't get Bob to attend a rehearsal of Children's Children, right? That's sort of the continuation of the monologue work they did in the hallway after working on Mine Heron, Episode 3. Yeah. But here, this to me is like the meat of it, right? This is the meat of the Who is the Puppet Master conversation so far. Okay. I love that we see this as both of them are not looking at each other. They're watching a rehearsal, right? Oh, yeah. The conversation that Gwen and Bob have is while they're running the Manson Trio.

Yes. And yet it's sort of the crux of their entire relationship happening watching theater happen, right? It's a sidelines conversation. Okay. Yeah. Gwen says, did you hear what I said, Bob? I got the rights to Chicago. He says, that's great. I just can't think about another show right now. It's just I got a lot of job offers at this point. I can't guarantee Chicago is the next thing I want to do. And Gwen says, it's the next thing I want to do, which is the first acknowledgement that their careers, like it or not, are related to each other. Are entwined. Yes. Their success is entwined. Gwen has never said, at least in the show, I can't succeed if you aren't there to work with me, right? Yeah.

Okay. And here she says, the next thing I want to do should be the next thing you want to do, right? Which is multi-layered, right? Like it's the, it's the, we've achieved success together part of it. It's the, we're technically married part of it. It's the, we have a child together part of it. Like there's so many layers in which Bob is indebted.

[13:36] Aaron Albano: Yeah. It's, it's her invoking the partnership again, basically. And because he's on top right now, he wants nothing to do with it. After the pause, Gwen says, Bob, I need to work. And Bob says, you don't need to work, which is like, I guess, very true, right? They're financially secure. Like she's had a claim in her career, but she says, I want to, and that we have the opportunity to do something incredible together, which is like the language from Pippin, right? She's using that saying, you can be incredible with me. Wow. I did not recognize the power of this scene until you just spelled it out.

[14:31] Moe Brady: Well, you're welcome. Thank you. And so then we see the switch in the scene where Bob calls Gwen at 3am and says, Hey, come to DC and help me fix Pippin. And she hangs up the phone.

[14:43] Aaron Albano: Good. I was, I like to celebrate it watching that moment.

[14:46] Moe Brady: Yes. I mean, we go further into this legacy idea in the dream sequence at the end, right? Dream Gwen, this dream sequence, she pulls these lines out, which are like, so good. They're so good. Dream Gwen says to Bob, the ones who die young, they're the ones who live forever. If you do this, you'll eclipse me. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. There it is. Like, Gwen's not saying this. This is Bob saying this through the voice of Gwen, which means this insecurity is still there, even with all of his statues. And yet he has the voice of his ex-wife still challenging him and still making him feel less than because they're addicted to each other.

[15:32] Aaron Albano: Yeah, yeah. All of these theses just like wrap into each other. We know he loves her. We know he admires her. We know he reveres her and yet her presence is his failure. And the only way in his mind that he wins, quote unquote wins is if he kills himself. Because then he'll surpass her at that point.

[15:55] Moe Brady: How do you love someone where you're unendingly competing with them? It's so toxic. It's so toxic. And yet they've seen that toxicity work and behoove them. So does that make it worth it?

[16:10] Aaron Albano: I mean, we're not watching a miniseries about two people who were really happy in their personal life and created just fine art.

[16:16] Moe Brady: Sure, sure. And I guess that's where, damn, I guess that these are the stories, right? These are the infamous stories that are worthy of being captured in an eight-part limited series.

[16:32] Aaron Albano: Yeah, 100%. And that's when it's like, this is the crux, like with both Fosse-Verdon and in some ways Smash and in some ways fame, I guess. We revere this brilliance and then we see this dramatization of what it cost. Is the severe unhealth and the severe mental instability of these two people worth the art that they created together?

[17:01] Moe Brady: Well, I think the show is positing that question very clearly when it brings Nicole into play. Do you remember when we first became friends? Neil and Bobby doing that awful show. You were pregnant with Nicole. I was pregnant with Nancy. We stood in the back of the theater on opening night because we were too fat to sit in the seats.

[17:24] Aaron Albano: Oh, our girls. They have so much in common, don't they? Raised in rehearsal studios and on film sets.

[17:31] Moe Brady: Sometimes I regret that. Sometimes I think we let them grow up too fast.

[17:41] Aaron Albano: I need you to promise me something, Gwen.

[17:44] Moe Brady: Promise me that you'll look out for Nicole.

[17:50] Aaron Albano: She needs her mother.

[17:59] Moe Brady: I worry for her. You take care of her. Joan Simon's quote unquote dying speech in the middle of the night is that she implores Gwen to look after Nicole. She needs a mother. You have to take care of her. They want to do something extraordinary and yet it is the ordinary thing being parents that would help them feel truly fulfilled. It's what makes them sort of partners in such a great way. It takes Joan on her deathbed battling cancer to gain this perspective. She holds Gwen's hand and is like, take care of her. She needs her mother. Gwen is speechless.

[18:51] Aaron Albano: The next time we see Gwen, she has canceled her plans that night to spend time with Nicole.

[18:57] Moe Brady: She canceled her plans one night. Being a mom, good for you.

[19:03] Aaron Albano: But it is in very stark contrast to her son with James Hennigan, right? She did not choose that child.

[19:10] Moe Brady: Correct. She very clearly chose her career. And so Joan, her ride or die, as you like to call her, is saying you got to choose Nicole over your career at this point. And you can just feel how that bristles inside her.

[19:25] Aaron Albano: Yeah. And ultimately, we see that switch in Gwen. And then ultimately, I think, I don't know, tell me if you agree, because I think the show pretty much spells it out for us that that shift happens at the end for Bob. I don't remember the last four episodes, so I guess we'll see.

[19:44] Moe Brady: Yeah, sure. It's certainly saying in that moment, Bob chooses not to commit suicide because of his daughter. And yet I don't think it's really said in any way that he's going to follow through with that choice or given us a reason why it's just said. It's just in the moment and through beautiful theatrical conventions, he is given the option of raising his legacy through death to the highest it can possibly be. And instead, he chooses life.

[20:17] Aaron Albano: Does he?

[20:17] Moe Brady: In this moment, he does.

[20:22] Aaron Albano: Okay. Whether he does the rest of his life, because people can backslide.

[20:28] Moe Brady: Well, he is realizing through all these wins, Patty is telling him in the back of various limos, yes, your problem is that you learned at a very young age that everything is bullshit. Success is bullshit. Love is bullshit. It's all bullshit. You could win 100 of these being awards, but it's bullshit all the way down. And through the entire montage, at the end of it, Patty is like, are you happy yet? Patty's just as much of a ride or die for Bob as Joan Simon is for Gwen. So he knows. And he's like, this didn't work, did it?

[21:02] Aaron Albano: And now we see dream Patty, dream Gwen and dream Ben Vereen being like, we know, like the devil on his shoulder being like, we know how you can top all of this.

[21:07] Moe Brady: I love that Norbert Leo Butz doesn't sing as Patty Jevsky. The rest of them all sing and then somehow, because Patty wasn't a performer, he doesn't sing. I'm like, that's Norbert Leo Butz in there. Can you just let him sing at me, please? Let him hold some kind of note while sitting on an armoire. We've deserved this much. We deserve the dulcet tones of Norbert Leo Butz. Norbert says no, not in my contract.

[21:30] Aaron Albano: But like, forgive me, but this all gave me like, Hamilton vibes where I'm just like, oh, we're talking about legacy, legacy, legacy. What is a legacy?

[21:42] Moe Brady: Oh, guys, I wish you could see this because Aaron just put his hand up to his chest in a very Hamilton way. It was very sweet.

[21:47] Aaron Albano: It's a sensible theme step. But there's something there where it's like, he's so concerned with his legacy that his psyche is telling him against his better angels what would give him the highest legacy. And then right at the 11th hour, his better angels take the form of his child. And I think that also plays into everything we've talked about. Like, what is your legacy? What you leave behind artistically, or your actual progeny that you leave behind?

[22:19] Moe Brady: It's rough, man. It's rough. It's both. I mean, we don't know Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon for being Nicole's parents, you know? And yet Nicole is the executive producer on the show. We don't know Alexander Hamilton for being Philip's dad, you know? Like, we know these people because they hustled so much beyond being parents. But Nicole is who is carrying on the legacy.

[22:48] Aaron Albano: The orphanage is the legacy of Eliza.

[22:56] Moe Brady: Yeah. So who's to say it's not what you leave behind, but who you leave behind that is your true legacy?

[23:02] Aaron Albano: I don't know. I don't know the answer. I mean, I don't know the answer to that question, right? It's like, yeah, no, of course your kids are your legacy, but it also feels a little like lots of people are great parents, and they don't get FX miniseries written about them, you know? Like, children become the collateral damage of those who achieve a legacy. They are also a part of that legacy, but while being part of that legacy, they are also damaged by it.

[23:35] Moe Brady: To keep up to date with next week's recap, be sure to watch episode five of Fosse-Verdon, Where Am I Going? You can find episodes on Hulu.

[23:41] Aaron Albano: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Moe Brady.

[23:47] Moe Brady: And by me, Aaron Albano. There are two great ways you could be helping The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And the second is by becoming a Patreon member at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Please follow The Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of Broadway Podcast Network.

[24:05] Aaron Albano: You can also follow us on Instagram. Thanks for listening, everyone! Until next time!