Gatz is a once-in-a-lifetime event that will scarcely appeal to every taste, but it is likely to be an extraordinary experience for ardent lovers of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby, and for imaginative theatergoers willing and able to appreciate the atmospheric magic generated by this remarkable production.
Every word of Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel is performed by a 13-member ensemble whose stage circumstances are wonderfully unlike the glittering North Shore and Plaza Hotel environs of his Jazz Age story. Gatz unfolds in a nondescript break room of some unnamed shipping-type company. From the vintage looks of the computer and typewriters, the time period appears to be the early 1990s. It is a fairly drab, brown and gray place casually outfitted with mismatched, battered furniture and filing cabinets; a long industrial table, a gray vinyl couch and a window at the rear that discloses a corridor are among key elements in the setting designed by Louisa Thompson.
A middle-aged man opens a door, turns on the lights, walks in, and sits in front of a computer, which stubbornly refuses to boot up. Killing time, the man picks up a paperback edition of The Great Gatsby and begins to read it aloud in the easy, conversational manner of the opening passages. Even as he speaks Fitzgerald’s graceful words introducing the narrator Nick, and relating how he came to be a neighbor to the mysterious Gatsby, various employees come and go, silently enacting desultory office business with clipboards, bills of lading, files, and similar items. Then, when Nick visits his cousin Daisy and her millionaire husband Tom, the others begin to speak along with their characters and a marvelous illusion develops: Still wearing everyday work clothes, the actors somehow are able to vividly suggest – virtually become – Fitzgerald’s people. That small, sallow woman in a pink polo shirt and brown double-knit slacks reading a magazine on the couch transforms into the elegant golf champion Jordan Baker. A strapping dude clad in Carhart togs soon becomes rich, reckless Tom Buchanan. Should viewers go with the flow of the story and free their imaginations with it, such illusion magically happens for every character as the novel rolls along, thanks to the persuasive physical and vocal artistry of the ensemble. The contrast between Fitzgerald’s evocation of Roaring Twenties glamor and the humdrum realities of people seen hanging out in the break room of some nameless business is striking.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The company’s tightly meshed performances are enhanced by the modulating subtleties of the lighting designed by Mark Barton as well as a deeply layered, dramatically resonant sound design of music and ambient noise crafted by Ben Jalosa Williams. Notable sequences in the novel are created through a vivid mix of performance and stagecraft such as when an increasingly raucous party in an uptown apartment is simulated with ever-bigger eruptions of paper that eventually litters the entire room. The story’s symbolic green light that glows in the distance emanates here from an office machine.
Created by the members of the Elevator Repair Service under the smart, inventive direction of company founder John Collins, Gatz premiered in 2004 and was first seen at the Public in 2010. This revival, which opened Friday, features many original members of the ensemble. Scott Shepherd returns as Nick, giving his character a sympathetic attitude and a warm, clear voice to provide much of the narration. A balding, middle-aged individual, Jim Fletcher may not be everyone’s vision of glamorous Jay Gatsby (most of the actors scarcely resemble Fitzgerald’s descriptions), but his laconic, gentle manner suits the character’s enigmatic quality. Another original cast member, Susie Sokol, portrays deceptive Jordan Baker with a cool, sardonic edge. While Tory Vazquez’s Daisy is glimpsed as an elusive figure in white – just the way she was depicted in the novel – lively performances are contributed by Pete Simpson as a bluff Tom Buchanan and Laurena Allan as his vulgar, ill-fated girlfriend Myrtle. Colleen Werthmann’s understated costume design abets these characterizations and injects some welcome color into the visuals.
In addition to these fine performances and staging, what lends Gatz extra distinction that previous adaptations of the book cannot produce is the considerable beauty and incidental humor of Fitzgerald’s wordplay, spoken here in its entirety. Yet the show is not a marathon event as might be assumed. The story is rendered in two roughly three-hour and 15-minute parts (including intermissions) divided by a 90-minute dinner break; that’s no hardship to watch, particularly when the comfortable seating in the Public’s Newman space offers appreciable leg and elbow room. Besides, it is never a matter of how long a show may be, it’s how quickly the time passes. Paced strategically in varying rhythms, Gatz seems surprisingly swift. On a personal note, let me add that I witnessed the first Public production and it was thrilling to experience the show once again.
Gatz opened November 8, 2024, at the Public Theater and runs through December 1. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
