By Lucy Komisar
Film director Joan Micklin Silver once told me that making a film from a book, she had to pull the movie out of the book. But here director John Collins has run the entire text of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby as a reading of Nick Carroway’s narrative, with drama when dialogue pulls in the dozen actors. Even so, GATZ grabs you so you cannot leave a 6 1/2-hour production. At the end, I saw no empty seats.
Jimmy Gatz is the real name of Jay Gatsby (Jim Fletcher) before he reinvented his less exalted self. It takes a long time to get to that. Starting at 2pm, it was close to the 10pm close. (Intermissions and dinner break in between.)
The play starts out with a small business employee whose computer isn’t working. He finds a copy of the novel and starts reading it. He becomes the narrator Nick Carroway (Scott Shepherd). This is director John Collins’ input. And as his text turns to dialogue, characters dressed as office workers take roles. Till they sometimes dress in over-the-top costumes.
The set is a formica table with an old 1980s computer that seems to have technical problems and is regularly pulled off and put back. There are desk chairs, an old black leather couch, file cabinets. The desk clock is always at 9:40.
Key plot if you don’t know it: The place is a mansion on Long Island, probably the Hamptons, maybe Montauk. Gatsby, who made fabulous money, probably as bootlegger, never got over falling in love as a soldier with Daisy (Tory Vazquez) who he met at a USO club. But she married the nasty but rich Tom Buchanan (Pete Simpson). They live in another grand home across the water from Gatsby’s. It’s why he chose the location.
So, the key men of the story are Carroway, Buchanan and Gatsby.
Tom has taken a lover, the working-class Myrtle Wilson (Laurena Allan) whose husband runs a gas station that Tom conveniently stops at to gas up on the way to the city.
With Collins’ direction, the dialogue is played more surreal than naturalistic. There are exaggerated jerky movements and slapstick shouting and screeching. Reading a book, you have a picture in your eye. That is not what Collins shows you.
A scene at the apartment where Myrtle sees Tom involves throwing (the book’s) pages into the air and flinging chocolates across the room. Items are swept off tables. There is a hokey fake piano. Tom makes a loud transition from libertine to pig. Myrtle wears a terrific tacky white falling off-the-shoulders cocktail dress.
More hokey stuff: Daisy’s eyes are sprayed to produce tears. Jay’s golf champion friend Jordan Baker (Susie Sokol) swings an imaginary club and talks in upspeak. She doesn’t look like your image of a sportswoman, maybe because she is an office worker. Nick falls for Jordan. Gatsby gets Nick to invite Daisy to his nearby cottage for tea.
Gatsby, whose parents were not successful, changed his name and wears suits of pink or white. And is so fanatic about appearances he arranges to get Nick’s lawn mowed before the tea.
No need to tell the rest, which you probably know, except that all the events are played over-the-top.
I’ve seen several Gatsby plays in the last year or two. (Copyright has lapsed, so it’s a free-for-all!) Interesting how adding narrative enriches the story. You don’t get lush party scenes, or the garish sports cars, but you hear peoples’ interior thoughts. As well as surreal visuals that take you beyond the text.
My companion, a French film writer/director/actor, gave it her highest praise: “This is so European!”
“GATZ.” at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street (at Astor Place) New York. Created and performed by Elevator Repair Service. Written as The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, directed by John Collins. 8 hours, with two 15-min intermissions and one 90-min dinner break. Opened Nov 1, 2024, closes Dec 1, 2024. For the text.