The Great Gatsby at the Saenger Theatre
The Great Gatsby, a new musical, recently played at the Saenger Theatre as part of its national tour. Was it great? No. But it was better than I anticipated.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel has been adapted many times, including four movie versions and three on television. This one opened on Broadway two years ago to decent but not outstanding reviews and received only one Tony Award nomination for Linda Cho’s extravagant Jazz Era costumes, which it deservedly won.
Somehow, it’s kept playing to mostly full houses since 2024; name recognition, perhaps? I’m pretty sure I don’t know anyone who’s seen it on Broadway. So I entered the Saenger with fairly low expectations.
On one hand, they were met. Kait Kerrigan’s book reduces Fitzgerald’s iconic characters to figures in a second-rate soap opera. They come off as merely two-dimensional and, thus, we never really care much about them. This became very apparent towards the end when, despite the putative drama on stage, laughter could be heard throughout the auditorium because the plot’s seriousness was never earned in Kerrigan’s rendition.
The score by Jason Howard (music) and Nathan Tysen (lyrics), as with most new musicals these days, is forgettable. Like it’s 10 days after I saw the show and if someone put a gun to my head and threatened to pull the trigger unless I hummed one of Gatsby’s tunes, I’d have to say “Fire away!” Worse, they never exuded a period feel; whether ballads or up-tempo numbers, they all sounded like they could’ve come from just about any other musical from the past 10 years or so.
Given all this, it’s hardly surprising that Gatsby’s emotional tone is virtually the same from beginning to end, a bland, only moderately involving simmer. One wonders what Kander & Ebb, the geniuses behind Cabaret and Chicago, both set in the same era, might have done with Gatsby.
Strangely, though, after sitting through Back to the Future: The Musical and Hell’s Kitchen and Water for Elephants, which have all passed through the Saenger in recent months, I didn’t mind Gatsby that much; at least it was entertaining with its splashy production numbers and cars rolling on and off the stage.
Director Marc Bruni kept the show humming along while Dominique Kelley’s choreography, while not entirely dazzling, provided the requisite shimmyin’ and shakin’.
And it was certainly gorgeous to look at. In addition to Cho’s cavalcade of snazzy bugle-beaded costumes, Paul Tate dePoo III’s art deco-inspired sets and projections whisked us from elegant Long Island mansions to chic Manhattan hotel rooms.
The cast was solid if not spectacular with the women making a more worthy impression than the men. As Daisy, Gatsby’s great love, Senzel Ahmady didn’t wear her privilege lightly. Leanne Robinson portrayed Jordan Baker, a professional golfer who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, with assurance and strong vocal prowess. Lila Coogan was properly coarse as Myrtle Wilson, the mistress of Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan, whom, in Will Branner’s performance, came off as a mere hot-headed bully. Tally Sessions’ George Wilson, a garage mechanic and Myrtle’s cuckolded spouse, seemed, not inappropriately, like he could be a cousin to Chicago’s Amos Hart. Jake David Smith’s Gatsby was more klutzy than mysterious.
The cast of The Great Gatsby (photo by Evan Zimmerman)
So The Great Gatsby may not have been great but, as this tour wends its way around the country playing through August 2027, if you’re looking for an introduction to or reacquaintance with “the great American novel” without actually reading it, there are worse ways to spend an evening.
Critic’s Notebook
If too many shows emanating from Broadway of late have left something to be desired, I’ve found a much higher level of satisfaction far from the Saenger at some of our local high schools. Two recent examples have been Mount Carmel Academy‘s production of The SpongeBob Musical and Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays at NOCCA.
Based on the cartoon series, SpongeBob features songs by such big-name composers as Sara Bareilles, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry of Aerosmith, David Bowie and more; despite that, it had a fairly short Broadway run in 2017/2018. Kyle Jarrow’s book is cute, emphasizing the need for friendship and cooperation.
Kristi Jacobs-Stanley’s production of it at Mount Carmel Academy, featuring Baylee Robertson’s wildly imaginative costumes and Edward Cox’s suitably simple set, was buoyant, theatrically joyous and filled with heart. When Patrick Star and a few cans-worth of sardines emerged for Yolanda Adams’ gospel number Super Sea Star Savior, they and Abbey Murrell’s marvelous choreography brought a big ol’ smile to my face.
The entire cast was delightful with special kudos to Keri Evelyn Neumann (SpongeBob SquarePants), Caitlin Picone (Sandy Cheeks), Emma Kate Banquer,(Squidward Q. Tentacles), and Bryson Morse (Patrick Star ).
365 Days/365 Plays is a challenging work. In 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winner Parks set out to write a play a day for a year. Some of the resulting playlets are mere snippets or snatches of a play, rather than an actual micro-drama.
Directors Arrianna Chai and Amy Holtcamp curated about 25 of Parks’ plays into a 90-minute evening. A bit mysterious, hinting at conflicts, with occasional comic touches, the script provides a terrific exercise for young thespians to create fully-bodied scenes on the stage from the merest of details on the page.
The entire cast of sixteen met this challenge with aplomb and assurance, each performer quickly shifting among varying characters that was a credit to their talents and their directors’ guidance.
Based on these two productions, the future of theater in New Orleans is in good hands.
