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Monday, July 24, 2006

The Mixed Gatsby

Posted by on July 24 at 10:20 AM

Maybe The Great Gatsby was meant to stay a novel. Or, if it must be performed, it should be restricted to the Andy Kaufmans of the world. There have been lukewarm cinematic adaptations, a so-so Broadway run in 1926, a 2000 opera that critic Bernard Holland called an “overblown adventure,” and now a production in Minneapolis, at the Guthrie, directed by Rep boss David Esbjornson, that will come to the Rep in November.

And it’s getting mixed reviews:

The major flaw in director David Esbjornson’s staging is that he rather seriously confuses Fitzgerald with Tennessee Williams… Christina Baldwin plays Myrtle Wilson like a Value Meal Maggie the Cat with a side order of histrionics… But if Fitzgerald’s novel has that timeless sweep, it’s also a uniquely American tale, and should thus have special resonance. The Guthrie staging is clean. And it’s pretty. But it never thrums in our souls.
“Gatsby” is Nick’s memoir, recited in his own head and told in Fitzgerald’s lyric and elegiac voice—a narration that reads beautifully on the page, but has vexed attempts to move the story from behind the eyes to the visual realm.
One innovative approach, which Twin Cities audiences will have a look at in September, is to simply read the novel, from cover to cover. In “Gatz,” Elevator Repair Service is an avant-garde New York troupe that uses the text as the basis for a drama presented over six hours… Broadway producers are very interested in how the piece plays out. The New York Times reported recently that “Gatz” was not given a license to produce in New York because it was seen as potential competition.

Maybe some plucky local theater—say, Washington Ensemble Theatre or On the Boards—should invite Elevator Repair Service to Seattle this November. We jumped on Rachel Corrie when New York wussed out—we’re the perfect city to stage a Gatz versus Gatsby death match.


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The Rachel Corrie play will be terrible. The Stranger reported her connections with terrorist groups. New York Theatre had the balls to stand up against crappy pro-terrorist theatre. It's Seattle that wussed out.

Yeah, what is it with this vogue in dramatizations of Great American Novels?

The Intiman's American Cycle is full of them - Grape of Wrath last year, Native Son this.

Sounds like Esbjornson's Gatsby has the same kind of weakness I noted in Grapes last year - they turn the novel into a museum piece that they are merely representing on stage - when they should be dramatizing it with an immediacy for today's audience approaching what it had for its original readership.

Alas, given some exchanges I had with the Intiman management in the wake of my Grapes entry, I fear Native Son will fall similarly flat.


GATZ is far more than just the reading of the novel—it's an incredible piece of theater that anyone would be hard-pressed to top.

keep my name in ya mouth.

On The Boards did invite Gatz. The Fitzgerald people said no to it coming to Seattle. Presumably for the same reasons they say it can't come to New York.

fyi - Gatz has its US premiere at the Walker Art Center in Mpls shortly after The Great Gatsby closes at the Guthrie. (search for "Gatz" on the calendar at the Walker Art Center)

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