Broadway Musical Has Glamour, No Grit

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby,” which captured the roaring twenties with shocking clarity, is a staple of high school curricula and has been immortalized in two famous film adaptations (in 1974 by Richard Clayton and in 2013 by Baz Lurhman). It’s most remembered for the titular character’s lavish parties, though as any good reader of the novel will tell you, the party’s are all razzle dazzle — what really matters is what’s underneath. The pain, the social climbing, the lack of ethics, and the post-war, orgiastic egoism are what the work is really about. 

With “The Great Gatsby” finally falling under the public domain, it’s no surprise that it’s become a hot property for musical adaptation. The first of these to land on Broadway has music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Nathan Tysen, book by Kait Kerrigan, and direction by Marc Bruni. (The other adaptation, with music by Florence Welch, premieres at American Repertory Theater later this spring.) In this first Broadway version, the creatives have committed wholeheartedly to the spectacle of the story, but forgot the substance.

In doing so, they’ve made a devilish bargain, trading the novel’s soul for flashy visuals — and it almost even works. The design team here has pulled out all the stops and achieved something nearly unprecedented in terms of scale and quality. The parties are undeniably flashy, bordering on overstimulating to the senses. An ensemble two or three times the size (easy for film, impossible for Broadway) would’ve filled out the stage more effectively; that said, Dominique Kelley’s lively choreography mostly covers this up. 

Paul Tate DePoo III, who designed both the sets and the projections, makes ample use of the Broadway Theatre’s large stage, filling it with an art deco-inspired proscenium and endless moveable flats that reconfigure the space. His projections are masterful, utilizing tiny details (rolling clouds, lapping waves) to transform what might be painted backdrops into amazingly realistic backgrounds. Most impressive are the instances when the projections show motion, as when an onstage car remains stationary while screens provide a stunning illusion of movement, especially when crossing the bridge to Manhattan. Rarely has projection design been so expertly executed. 

The costumes by Linda Cho are mostly accurate to the period, full of rhinestones and sparkles. Yet they sometimes have the appearance of generic rental 1920s costumes, and lean too heavily on black and gold art deco patterns — which at this point conjure as many memories of Forever 21 as they do of 1921. 

As our elusive — and illusive — party host, Jeremy Jordan makes a dashing Jay Gatsby. He successfully differentiates himself from his predecessors, finding a softer dialect and leaning into Gatsby’s humorous nervousness and sometimes alarming intensity. He proves himself a top-notch leading man, a feat made more laudable by the fact that he’s surrounded by sub-par performances.

John Zdrojeski as Tom Buchanan, Sara Chase as Myrtle, and Paul Whitty as Wilson are perfectly capable, if somewhat unoriginal. The real issue lies in three of the show’s leads. Noah J. Ricketts, our Nick Carraway, is less a voyeur and more a nonentity, overshadowed by the musical’s grandeur. Samantha Pauly (as Jordan Baker) gives a solid effort, but seems lost in a poorly-written rewrite of her character and trapped in a Barbra Streisand bob wig. As Daisy, Eva Noblezada’s casting goes against type, and though this could have been an exciting change, Noblezada misses the mark entirely. Instead of playing the character’s allure, fragility, and unscrupulousness, she comes off as a fairly generic, slightly bitter ingénue. 

However, the show boasts a robust musical theater score (a rarity this season). Lyrically there are some witty gems, like “When your money makes you money what are the well to do to do? / But buy another pony with the interest they accrue. / While right across the bay they’re making fortunes on the go, / over there the rich are riche and the money is nouveau.” But many lyrics tend toward the over-earnest and unsubtle. Gatsby and Daisy get two duets and a pair of solos; Daisy’s are droll and Noblezada sings them with out-of-place pop riffs, whereas Gatsby’s are full of powerful yearning, and Jordan’s booming belt transforms them into the strongest moments in the show.      

Part of the issue, both lyrically and in the book, comes from intermittent quotations from the novel. Fitzgerald’s prose is beautifully poetic, but Kerrigan and Howland’s phrasing sounds nothing like his, so when the characters occasionally slip into quotes they sound unnatural, like forced recitations. 

The creative team made several small, though significant, changes to the source material. Nick and Jordan are now explicitly heterosexual, have sex, and get engaged. Some plot events are rushed, as when our dysfunctional quintet leaves Gatsby’s party and heads directly to the Plaza. Most egregiously, the musical completely omits Gatsby’s backstory, neglecting to explain Jay’s transformation from Gatz to Gatsby. It also lets Daisy off the hook by giving her a feminist ballad in her final scene, which is supposed to make us sympathize with her as a woman without many choices. In reality, Daisy is as morally bankrupt and selfish as the others, and quite wilfully tosses Gatsby aside when things get complicated. They’re all villains — that’s the point.  

By missing some crucial nuances of the novel, this musical risks becoming yet another adaptation of an existing, popular novel/film, of which there have been many this season (“Back to the Future,” “The Outsiders,” “The Notebook,” “Water for Elephants”). Like “Gatsby,” all of these include a cross-class romance where a poor boy falls for a rich girl, and in several instances his letters get waylaid. Weirdly enough, quite a few musicals this season even heavily feature cars onstage (“Back to the Future,” “The Outsiders,” “Lempicka,” and now “Gatsby”). The Venn diagram memes almost make themselves, and it’s not unreasonable to say that critics and audiences alike are fatigued and desperate for some originality.

This “Gatsby” dares to ask the question: If our Gatsby is first-rate, and his soirees are stunning, is that enough? Does a good host and a fun party make a great “Great Gatsby”? Maybe not entirely, but it does make for a great time. It’s nearly impossible not to be taken in and enjoy the shimmering, sparkling spectacle before you.

For any fan of “The Great Gatsby,” though, it’s likely you’ll have moments of wanting more, of missing out on all the subtext, grit, and suffering beneath the sequins. Right as you have that pang, you’ll probably get distracted by another sweeping set change or production number, and as the opening and closing song playfully depict, the party will just keep rolling on and on and on, so you might as well join in and enjoy the ride.