There’s a lot of talent on stage in Theatre in the Round Players’ production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” The adaptation of this tragic love story by Simon Levy had its first production just down the street at the Guthrie Theater as the inaugural production for the big blue building by the river twenty years ago. It was fascinating to see the same script on its feet again in the much more intimate arena setting at TRP. It also made the strengths and weaknesses of the script a lot clearer in close up.
“Trying to forget something very sad that happened to me long ago.”
“The Great Gatsby” is a classic American novel for a reason, so the story, and the language of the original, in the hands of these actors and this director and design team, still have many moments when they shine through, and even dazzle the audience. But even all their talent can’t fully prop up the clunkier bits in this adaptation. On balance, it’s a really strong piece of theater, so I still recommend seeing it. It’s just hard to capture the magic of “Gatsby” on the page and translate it fully - film and stage versions have been trying for years with mixed success. But it’s such a good book that you can’t help but try. (The final line has haunted me ever since I first read the novel as a teenager.)
“The dearest heart of all.”
“The Great Gatsby” is told through the narration of Nick Carraway (Gavin Webb), a young man returning home from World War One too restless to stay at home in the midwest, so he strikes out for New York and connects with his cousin Daisy Buchanan (Nina Broberg) and her husband Tom (John Blocher), two rich careless people who shouldn’t have become parents. Tom has a woman on the side, Myrtle Wilson (Sydney Lanning Payne), who he regularly parties with at an apartment he keeps for her in the city. Myrtle is also married, to the well-meaning but clueless owner of a gas station and car repair shop named George (Ian Fee). Tom and Myrtle aren’t shy about flaunting their affair, and their long-suffering spouses seem resigned to putting up with the disrespect. Nick is an awkward, uncomfortable witness to all of this. Meanwhile, Tom and Daisy’s friend Jordan Baker (Kendra Alaura), a female professional golfer, has her eye on Nick, and he’s happy to reciprocate her attentions.
“There’s the kind of man you want to take home to your mother and sister.”
Someone else with their eye on Nick, and all these goings on, is Jay Gatsby (Jake Leif), owner of the spacious estate just across the bay from Tom and Daisy’s home, and right next to the small rental cabin where Nick is staying. Gatsby invites Nick to one of his lavish parties (this is the jazz age, the roaring 20s after all) and the two men hit it off immediately as fellow veterans of the war. But in addition to his present day intense friendship with Nick, Jay Gatsby is also a past lover of Daisy’s (before he was off to the war, and she got married), and it’s a love he’d like to rekindle, with Nick’s help.
“So much more than anyone in the world ever had.”
Director Vanessa Brooke Agnes has assembled a solid cast and guides them skillfully through this thicket of interconnected relationships. (The ensemble also includes Abdoulie Ceesay, Joseph Dinh, Emily Elliot, Sandi Flahn, Casey Lomibao, and Lindsey Meath.) Set Designer Michael Haas (assisted by Veronica Rohde) and Prop Designer Roxanne Miller (assisted by Taylor Koehler) create the vivid world of a hundred years ago that these people live in. Costume Designer Emma Shook (assisted by Sarah Berg) gives the cast the colorful look they need for this period drama. Lighting Designer Chad Van Kekerix gives the audience both the sparkle of the chandelier center stage and the haunting green light pulsing at the end of Daisy’s dock on the water, as well as the shadows creeping in around the edges of everyone’s happiest moments, the unsettling glowing eyes in the billboard advertising an optometrist, and the piercing headlights of a car with reckless drivers behind the steering wheel. Sound Designer Tatum Evans helps make that car we never see all too real, in addition to populating all the parties with more people and music than you can normally conjure with a cast of just over a dozen people. This design team really boost the production to something that has the look and feel of the source material so kudos all around for creating this world for the cast and the audience. There’s even a live saxophone player (Maje Adams) up on a platform above the action on the side to send a jolt of sound through the proceedings at key moments. A quick nod should also be given to assistant director and dramaturg Alex Church, choreographer Colin Edwards, fight & intimacy director Madeline Achen, stage manager Briana K. Roesler and her assistant Thucydides Tempas, as they all had a lot to help the director wrangle on this crowded and impressive canvas.
“Where were the party people now?”
Despite the fact that each of the two acts of the evening clock in at well under an hour, 45 and 40 minutes respectively, the first act still feels like it’s taking the time it needs to introduce us to the characters and relationships that are central to the play, and gets you to care about Jay and Daisy’s reunion in particular. It’s the shorter second act where things kind of go off the rails. Suddenly the script is barreling through moment after moment at a rapid clip that doesn’t really allow anything a chance to settle and catch its breath properly (including, sometimes, the audience). It begins to feel more like a soap opera or telenovela than a tragedy.
“Daisy ought to have something in her life, don’t you think?”
Again, not the fault of the cast so much as it is the script they’re wrangling with. There’s some unnecessary repetition of plot beats, there are numerous supporting characters that don’t really seem to support the story or have a good reason for being there. And often, with some characters, there’s not a lot of nuance, we get the point the first time. Some of this may be that the adaptation hasn’t aged well (in a post-2020 world, for instance, a little of Tom’s white supremacist talking points from books he’s read goes a LONG way - we get it, Tom, you’re terrible, and you’re cheating on your wife besides, you don’t have to keep reminding us.). There’s also a lot to be said for the difference in the lives of the haves and have nots, the two worlds Nick and Jay are constantly straddling - how those with the least are often left to pay the cost of the misdeeds of those who always seem to have (and take) more than they need. The script could have spent just a bit more time on that. The production is so close to sticking the landing despite the script that I couldn’t help wishing that there were a few less side characters and a little more run time so the central characters and story threads had a bit more room to blossom and really make us feel the loss of the happy ending that gets snatched away from Jay and Daisy and Nick.
“I’m paralyzed with happiness.”
That said, it’s still a solid production with a talented cast and despite the sometimes wobbly adaptation, the underlying story still comes through strongly, so TRP’s production of “The Great Gatsby” is well worth your time to see it in all its 1920s glory. “The Great Gatsby” plays at TRP through October 4th at 245 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis. Tickets are available through TRP’s website.
4 Stars - Highly Recommended