‘The Great Gatsby’ Review: Broadway Musical Has Glamour but Little Grit
variety.comChristian Lewis 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.
Read more on variety.com