Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Musing the legacy and enduring popularity of Elevator Repair Service’s legendary production of GATZ

• By drediman
• November 19, 2024
• No Comments

This fall at the Public Theater, Elevator Repair Service has remounted its storied staging of Gatz — allegedly for the final time before retiring the legendary production. I had seen the production twice before prior to this valedictory run — once in Chicago and then subsequently at the Public right before the pandemic hit. For those of you unfamiliar with the work, Gatz is essentially a verbatim performance of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 American novel The Great Gatsby. Set in a nondescript office, the show starts with one bored employee unassumingly picking up a ratty paperback copy of the novel and reading from it to pass the time. Over the course of some eight hours, he sinks deeper and deeper into work’s Jazz Age world, transmuted by Fitzgerald’s words.

Upon watching this twentieth anniversary mounting — the show was first performed in 2004 in Brooklyn before transferring to the Performing Garage in Soho — I was prompted to muse the work’s legacy and enduring popularity (unsurprisingly, the current run at the Public is all but sold out). Before the immersive theatrical experience became a genre all its own, Gatz preempted the craze by creating an experience that one can — like production’s office rat conduit — lose oneself in. In this regard, the work registers more like a bespoke event than your typical trip to the theater. There’s also the matter of Fitzgerald’s seductive prose, which paints scenes more vividly than any movie or naturalistic play ever can. And despite its reputation as a durational experience, it’s actually less of a grueling mental and physical commitment than you’d expect, thanks largely to some masterful pacing and well-placed breaks (there are two intermissions and one 90-minute dinner break). After happily sitting through Gatz a third time, I maintain my position that seeing it as a single marathon performance is the only way to go.

Many of the original cast members — led magnificently once again by Scott Shepherd as Nick Carraway (i.e., the work’s narrator and guiding moral compass) — have returned for this welcome encore run, alongside some new additions to the 13-member cast. As directed by Elevator Repair Service co-founder John Collins, Gatz is awash in subtlety and variety, as well as ample — if unconventional — theatricality, which is made possible by some some impeccable ensemble work. By this point, I’m sure Shepherd is able to recite the entire novel from memory. Indeed, his current performance at the Public has merged so thoroughly with the novel that even his physical presence onstage emanates The Great Gatsby. Jim Fletcher plays the titular role against type, which only contributes to the allure and mystique of the production.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

GATZ
Off-Broadway, Play
Elevator Repair Service at the Public Theater
8 hours (including two intermissions and one dinner break)
Through December 1