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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
The late film and stage artist Bob Fosse was the best director John Guare never had. In Fosse's last four movies--"Cabaret" (1972), "Lenny" (1974), "All That Jazz" (1979), and "Star 80" (1983)--we have what is perhaps America's most powerful and enduring indictment of show business and the hazards of the flesh. In these films, Fosse, a former dancer, spoke from the performer's perspective, a vantage point of torn ligaments and absurd hope. His various Pierrot-like protagonists are virtually untouched by the sour breath of reality until the true disasters of society overtake them and threaten to become the bigger drama, the grander spectacle. Fosse's Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), for instance, pays little mind to the blood being spilled across the cobblestones of Hitler's Berlin; it's more important to her that she make it to the Kit Kat Klub to sing "Cabaret" for her audience of the living dead. And you get the sense that, likewise, Fosse's Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman) cares less about fighting for free speech in all those bland, fluorescent-lit courtrooms than he does about competing with his lawyers for center stage.
In John Guare's most distinguished works, the main characters are similarly shut...
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