Good morning, and welcome to Broadway News’ Broadway Review by Brittani Samuel — our overview of reactions, recommendations and information tied to last night’s Broadway opening of “The Great Gatsby.”
RUNDOWN
I love American literature, yet I’m decidedly un-precious about the classics. Strip them, translate them, reset them on a different planet. All I beg is that the rejiggering unlocks a new purpose. Beyond pageantry, the musical adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” at the Broadway Theatre has none. Director Marc Bruni’s production simultaneously looks pricier and feels cheaper than when I saw it at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse last year. Scenic and projection designer Paul Tate dePoo III’s work there already glittered, but on Broadway it gleams. Evidently, Jay Gatsby is not the only nouveau riche in town. All of dePoo’s brassy, geometric shapes and gorgeous jewel-toned set pieces as well as costume designer Linda Cho’s period-appropriate glitz, while visually seductive, are sinister distractions from what is actually a disappointingly emotionless two and a half hours. Book writer Kait Kerrigan winks back to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary source material to set up her narrative framework. She orients the story through Nick Carraway’s (Noah J. Ricketts) lens. Nick introduces us to the fictional Long Island towns of East and West Egg, his old-money cousin Daisy (Eva Noblezada) and his debonair, new-money neighbor Jay Gatsby (Jeremy Jordan).
