Still More Theater Saturday - The Great Gatsby

We were given complimentary tickets to The Great Gatsby for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own.

What: The Great Gatsby

Where:  Broadway Theatre

              1681 Broadway

              New York, New York 

Who: Recommended for Ages 10 and Up

There is a lot to like about the current Broadway production of the musical, The Great Gatsby. The sets are spectacular, the costumes are fabulous, and the lighting is gorgeous. It has some fun songs too. The opening number Roaring On is a real earworm that will get stuck in your head. 

Still,  something is missing, something is not quite right or perhaps more than one thing.  Of course, there will be changes when a book is adapted into a stage show, but this one barely resembles the book it was based on.  The story has been turned into mostly a bittersweet love story which as we have all learned in high school English classes (or at least most of us have) was not Fitzgerald's intention at all.  

The story doesn't really work as a love story anyway. Neither the characters nor the relationship feel worth rooting for. All Gatsby does is pine for Daisy and here he is particularly whiny about it much more so than in the book. Daisy herself is spoiled brat who doesn't really care about anyone not even her own child. 

Jeremy Jordan who plays Gatsby and Eva Noblezada are both talented performers in their own right and both have been quite memorable in other roles. Eva possesses one of the lovliest voices around as well. Here they do adequately given what they have to work with. However, they don't really have any chemistry with each other. This makes it even harder to sell the story as a love story. Thus, over all, even though there are some good elements about the show, it is mostly a disappointment. 

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And that's our view. For more about The Great Gatsby or to purchase tickets. visit broadwaygatsby.com.

Photo credits:

All The Great Gatsby production photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Images used in this post have been sent to us from publicists, artists, and/or  PR firms and are used by permission. If there is a problem with the rights to any image, please contact us here, and we will look into the matter.