Kind of The Great Gatsby – A Musical

When F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, the book was neither a critical nor a commercial success. Not until the 1950s did the jazz age chronicle receive a second look and begin to appear on high school curriculums. Since that time, it’s never been out of print. The love story also depicts meanness of spirit, carelessness, absence of loyalties, and easy corruption its author observed first hand post WWI. Fitzgerald both glorified and pitied his immutable  characters.

The story: Nick Carraway (Noah J. Ricketts), newly arrived from Minnesota, has been able to rent a surprisingly inexpensive cottage in West Egg, Long Island. A beginner bond salesman, he commutes to Wall Street. Nick’s cousin Daisy (Eva Noblezada) lives directly across the bay in the more fashionable East Egg with her baby daughter and controlling, patrician husband Tom Buchanan (John Zdrojeski), an old classmate of Nick’s at Yale. (We hear the Buchanans argue out of sight.)

Noah J. Ricketts as NIck (Photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Next door to the cottage is an enormous mansion owned by mysterious, nouveau riche, Jay Gatsby (Jeremy Jordan), the sounds of whose legendary parties fill the night. Nick is surprised to receive an invitation to one of these. Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly), an insouciant golf champion his cousin thinks of as a match for him, insists they attend. Gatsby asks that the young man meet privately. He amiably exchanges war stories with the fellow veteran, then asks that Nick facilitate his meeting Daisy. “Ask her to tea, old sport….I’ll be indebted to you.”

It seems that Daisy and Jay Gatsby fell in love at a ball in Louisville five years ago. Though poor and disparaged by her parents, the young soldier was convinced she’d be waiting after the war. Everything he’s done since has been motivated by their rose-colored future. His house (a West Egg Taj Mahal), in fact a copied Normandy castle, was built in direct eye-view of Daisy’s dock in East Egg. Having acquired sizable income through shady business partner Meyer Wolfsheim (Stanley W. Mathis), it makes no difference to Gatsby that Daisy’s married. He can now maintain her lifestyle. She can’t possibly love Tom.

Eva Noblezada as Daisy (Photo Evan Zimmerman for Murphy Made)

Nick discovers Tom has a mistress named Myrtle (Sara Chase), the floozy wife of gas station owner George Wilson (Paul Whitty), whose pumps are an industrial wasteland pit stop on the way to New York. (Tom is brazen about infidelity.) George talks to the billboard of optometrist Dr. T. J. Eckleberg who looks down on everything like God. This interpretation makes Myrtle aware she likely only has two years before her lover moves on, but the glittering world he offers is enough. Meanwhile George’s wife intermittently tells him she’s visiting her sister in Manhattan.

Eschewing moral objections, purposefully on Daisy’s side, Nick sets up the tea. Kismet. A charming number observes Gatsby’s over the top cottage preparation while he, himself, panics. The lovers reunite with clandestine meetings, but is Daisy ready to leave the life she’s built with Tom? And if not, why not? Confrontations abound. The heroine makes a surprising decision. Two tragedies occur.

Noah J. Ricketts as Nick Carraway, Sara Chase as Myrtle Wilson, John Zdrojeski as Tom (Photo Evan Zimmerman for Murphy Made)

The cast are all fine singers in the Broadway/pop style. Jeremy Jordan imbues Gatsby with naïve, cocky determination, but anything resembling a love song is too big to land credibly. Eva Noblezada’s best moments are when, like the Robert Redford film, she cries (ostensibly) over Gatsby’s silk shirts and her reaction pressed to decide between the men. I miss the timid, frivolous, original character, a product of wealthy, conservative, southern upbringing.

Samantha Pauly gives Jordan Baker the right hard edge. Both Sara Chase (Myrtle Wilson) and Paul Whitty (George Wilson) are sympathetic. Stanley W. Mathis (Meyer Wolfshein) delivers a fine performance, calculating and quiet except singing (well) about endemic corruption. To my mind, the stand-out here is Noah J. Ricketts’s (Nick). The multi-talented actor is like a vein of observant, believable truth; he’s low key and likable.

Eva Noblezada as Daisy Buchanan and Jeremy Jordan as Jay Gatsby (Photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Kait Kerrigan’s book manifests things that were originally implied: instead of just suspicion that Gatsby deals in bootleg liquor, there are now cartons of “tomatoes” stored by gas station owner, Mr. Wilson. The business is run by Myer Wolfsheim, a character based on gangster Arnold Rothstein who, in fact, fixed the 1919 World Series. Here his role has appreciably increased, giving him dialogue and a production number.

Gatsby’s recreation of the ball where he and Daisy declared their love, is a new conceit. Though not farfetched, it’s staged with World War II-like entertainment (why not use a real period song out of copyright?) and no finesse. Nick and Jordon’s flirtation becomes an engagement, broken when they take moral sides. And Daisy, once the “pretty little fool” she wants her daughter to be, is now more substantial, ending up in bed with Gatsby at first meeting. Dialogue is fine, but subtlety is lost.

Jeremy Jordan as Jay Gatsby (Photo Evan Zimmerman for Murphy Made)

Nathan Tysen’s lyrics are stronger than generic, non-twenties-influenced  music (a lost opportunity) by collaborator Jason Howland. When the latter aimlessly wanders, words must follow. Overall, there’s nothing you’ll remember. The composer is also responsible for music supervision, orchestration, and arrangements which add to material sameness. Almost everything is a power song, if not throughout a song, then at the end. A show comprised of eleven o’clock numbers keeps one from emotional involvement. Of all the issues, this is the greatest. Gatsby’s approach appears, heaven help us, to be the methodology of much current musical theater.

Because of talent and visuals, Gatsby is entertaining, but it misses.

Choreographer Dominique Kelley barely nods to movement from the 1920s, choosing instead to manifest dance in unspecific period Las Vegas.

Scenic and projection design by Paul Tate dePoo III may never have been so successfully entwined with layer upon layer of 3-D Set and filmic background adding atmosphere and depth. Almost full sized cars are wonderful.

Linda Cho’s costumes are hit or miss. Men in brocade jackets is way before its time. Gatsby’s throwback 1917 ball finds all the women wearing washed out white. Daisy would never have worn a tiered chiffon dress to golf. Otherwise Cho’s choices are evocative if not right on.

Hair and wig design by Charles G. Lapointe and Rachel Geier are reliably just right.

Opening: Noah J. Ricketts as Nick Carraway, John Zdrojeski as Tom Buchanan, Eva Noblezada as Daisy Buchanan, Samantha Pauly as Jordan Baker (Photo by Evan Zimmerman for Murphy Made)

The Great Gatsby
Book – Kait Kerrigan
Music – Jason Howland; Lyrics – Nathan Tysen
Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Directed by Marc Bruni

Paper Mill Playhouse 
22 Brookside Drive 
Milburn, New Jersey
Through November 12, 2023