Orson Welles said it best. Confronted by Hollywood's movie-making paraphernalia, he chortled: "This is the biggest electric train any boy ever had to play with." Broadway Choreographer-Director Bob Fosse obviously felt the same exhilaration. But all he could do with that expensive equipment was play around. The result is a chuffing, tooting, O-gauge musical, Sweet Charity.
Charity began in 1957 as the title character of Nights of Cabiria, an Italian sleeper about a Punchinello prostitute. The director-writer was Federico Fellini; the star was his wife, Giulietta Masina. Maintaining the tradition, Fosse turned the...