The Great Gatsby

REVIEW By Celia Ipiotis

Eye popping Art Nouveau sets and projections by Paul Tate dePoo III kick off  “The Great Gatsby” at the Broadway Theatre. Written by Kait Kerrigan, the skillful staging by Marc Bruni and choreography by Dominique Kelley levitate the new Broadway musical backed by a terrific pit band. At times deviating from the original storyline, the musical still shines a klieg light on the love story between Daisy Buchanan (Eva Noblezada) and Jay Gatsby (Jeremy Jordan) . Once again, class status butts up against love. 

Nightly parties full of fabulous people spill out of Gatsby’s palatial West Egg home. Positioned directly across the water from East Egg old money mansions, he’s within sight of  the old money Buchanan abode.

A World War I army vet, Nick Carraway (an impressive Noah J. Ricketts), snares a rented carriage house on Gatsby’s grounds, close to his cousin Daisy. Soon the sexual  trysts and social entanglements mushroom between Carraway and the sassy, feminist golf pro, Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly); Tom Buchanan (John Zdrojeski) and his lover, Myrtle Wilson (Sara Chase); plus Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. This complex web of liaisons evolves until the brew becomes explosive.  

Storyline aside, the stage is charged by dancers’ flapping arms, criss-crossing knees and flips onto backs in the liberating dances of the 1920’s. This kinetic energy underscores the music’s bounce. The afternoon I went, the audience was electric, howling at the sight of Gatsby attired in his smart, white suit. 

Impeccably dressed (courtesy of costume designer Linda Cho), Gatsby conspires with Carraway to lure Daisy across the water for tea. An old, and everlasting flame, Gatsby met Daisy and fell in love just before being deployed to Europe. 

Breathtaking set changes animate every minute of the musical and in one particularly delightful scene, the orchestra rises up at the back of the stage and suddenly, we are dropped inside a glamorous Gold Coast party dressed for excess. Champagne flows and lovers swap embraces while the hot stepping dances rage on, breaking up the chorus into imaginative corners of movement, never relaxing into a uniform, synchronized line of movement.  

The end takes a dip into newly written territory that underscores upper society’s privileged status.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis