Gatz Off-Broadway Reviews

Gatz is a once-in-a-lifetime event that will scarcely appeal to every taste, but it is likely to be an extraordinary experience for ardent lovers of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby, and for imaginative theatergoers willing and able to appreciate the atmospheric magic generated by this remarkable production.

The true magnificence of this approach to a stage adaptation is its scrupulous inclusion of the full text. Standard stage adaptations eliminate most of an author’s descriptive prose. This one doesn’t, honoring Fitzgerald’s irresistible powers. For only one instance of innumerable heart-throbbing instances he writes: “Gatsby indicated a gorgeous orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-palm tree.” Eternal thanks, ERS.

Gatz reaches, by design, the level of sublimity which other plays happily stumble into. It is a work of genius which quietly announces the depths of its unspeakable beauty, and the profundity of its journey, by the broken table clock facing the audience. When one faces art so directly, so boldly and so openly, time truly stands still.