Broadway 'Gatsby' greenlights entertainment over nuance

Those who loved the stage version of the flapper favorite "Thoroughly Modern Millie" should equally adore "Thoroughly Modern Gatsby." Well, technically the extravagant touring show continuing through the month at the Connor Palace on Playhouse Square is named "The Great Gatsby," allegedly adapted from the great American tragic novel of the same title by F. Scott Fitzgerald. But the orgy of glittering golden mercurially changing sets and seamlessly interwoven animated background projections by Paul Tate DePoo III, plus the equally glittering and fringe-flapping costumes by Linda Cho (garnering the show's sole 2024 Tony Award nomination and win), are part of a series of distractions that seduce audiences away from the heart of the novel rather than toward it. If the show's creators were determined to emulate one of the novel's iconic film versions, director Marc Bruni and his producers chose the wrong one -- Baz Luhrmann's visual assault, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which made Fitzgerald's tragic high-society lovers indistinguishable from the overdressed music-video pop-singers from his earlier film "Moulin Rouge." The show's visual concept seems taken directly from it. Instead, Bruni and company should have given Broadway audiences enough credit by taking a cue from the earlier Jack Clayton-directed epic starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, a haunting, sullen but otherworldly glance into the ultimate tragedy of the American Dream suffered by the enigmatic titular hero who took an ill-fated "trip to the moon on gossamer wings" (as Broadway composer-lyricist Cole Porter once put it) to the ultra East-coast high society to capture the heart of its princess, Daisy Buchanan. The trouble begins with composer Jason Howland and lyricist Nathan Tysen, whose steady stream of generic pop-centric showstoppers -- as far away from Cole Porter as the 2020s are from the 1920s -- would be perfect for showboating singers if they were on "America's Got Talent" rather than a multidimensional evocation of a great American novel. Kait Kerrigan's book/script results in equal diminishment, reducing potentially rich emotional journeys into production-number filler. One of the romantic moments of the novel -- where Gatsby, who no longer seems to have any serious criminal history, reunites with his long-lost love Daisy at her cousin's cottage near Gatsby's legendary mansion -- is turned into a TV-sitcom gag: The cousin, who serves as the ominous narrator of the show and novel, pushes a nervous Gatsby, cold feet flailing, into the improvised floral lovenest. (Cue the canned laughter.) For a show that also embraces multi-racial casting to portray one of the most notoriously WASP milieus in American literary history, one might think it would embrace the novel's prescient unconventional societal mores that fit nicely into today's political fashion -- the sexual ambiguity of the secondary characters Nick Carraway, the narrator (Joshua Grosso, at least evoking innocence), and Daisy's golfer-friend Jordan Baker (stylishly cynical Leanne Robinson). Instead, the show erases any ominous bisexual implications by creating a definitive but unimaginative love affair between the two, in fact resulting in a rather unambiguous (albeit ill-fated) marriage proposal. Then there's the chorus, barging into virtually every scene with the same determination to remind us of the wild abandon of The Jazz Age -- strangely minus the jazz or the age (1920s). Dominique Kelly's choreography, although quite infectious, elaborate and emotional, treats actual period dancing as a faint obligatory reference among the hip-hop riffs. His adherence to the period becomes so indifferent, the chorus at times seem to be breaking into 1940s swing dancing -- fun but wrong. Perhaps stronger acting might have added badly needed nuance, but the cast members seem to be chosen for their ability to belt out generic show-stoppers rather than hone nuanced characterizations. As Gatsby, Jake David Smith has all the enigmatic presence of a frat boy, while Denzel Ahmady is about as ethereal as his sorority date. As determinedly entertainment driven this "Gatsby" strives to be, the show can't help but manage more than a few highly entertaining moments, even topped by a few stage-crossing automobiles (a yellow Rolls-Royce and a blue Pierce Arrow coupe). But the novel uses this element of excess -- the engrossingly elucidated wild jazz-age parties -- as ironic thematic context. Not here. Even at what should have been the somber ending, the army of party-goers burst onto the scene to remind the audience the big-show wow-factor is what "Gatsby" has always been about. That certainly seems to be more than OK for the cheering audience members. But the closer they get to embracing Broadway's "Gatsby," the farther they must sail adrift from the metaphorical green light of Fitzgerald's literary masterpiece. Contact Howard Gollop at howieeg@gmail.com. IF YOU GO WHAT: "The Great Gatsby" WHEN: Through June 28 (times vary) WHERE: Connor Palace, 1615 Euclid Ave., Playhouse Square TICKETS: $34.80 to $174 INFO: (216) 241-6000 or playhousesquare.org