Catch the Canadian premiere of
The Great Gatsby before it closes on March 3.
The Grand Theatre (471 Richmond Street) presents The Great Gatsby until March 3. For tickets call 519-672-8800.
Who is this man? The Great Gatsby at the Grand
~ Amie Ronald-Morgan
London, ON - This month, it’s great to be grand.
A cast of ten actors on the Grand Theatre’s main stage are bringing the literary classic The Great Gatsby to life. The run marks the Canadian premiere of the play, which opened in July 2006 in Minneapolis.
The play was adapted by Simon Levy, producing director of Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles. Authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, Levy had previously adapted two other celebrated Fitzgerald novels for the stage, The Last Tycoon and Tender is the Night. It was the first time in 80 years that the estate had granted rights to the adaptation of the jazz age masterpiece.
“The play is taken from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal book, and in terms of the author, his writing defined the early 20th century; the 1920s. A youthful generation is what he was writing about – post-World War One, when the younger generation was viewed as very revolutionary,” director Susan Ferley explained.
On multiple levels, the book served as an examination of the economic boom and resultant social fracturing that occurred in the major cities following the war.
“Fitzgerald was looking at the extravagance of the time. There is an epic scale to the piece. It’s very much about coming out of wartime and grabbing onto life. It looks at the lives of the wealthy, those who come by their wealth who are ‘old money,’ juxtaposed with those considered ‘new money,’” Ferley said.
One of the players on that new money scene is Jay Gatsby, played by Mike Shara, whom audiences may recognize from the Shaw and Stratford Shakespeare Festivals. Gatsby shows up at the beginning of the story a very wealthy man. But how did he get this way?
“There’s an excitement there. We meet the narrator Nick Carraway, who reflects back about Gatsby and his acquaintance with him, and his perspective on this man. Through him, we gain insights into the things Gatsby has done with his life,” Ferley said. In the first act, we are thrust into a world rife with decadence and excess, where the characters exist in a bubble of privilege on Long Island. Nick is eventually drawn into their world of greed and danger.
“We see the juxtaposition of this man who has such hope, with these other people who have had the good life handed to them. Gatsby hangs onto hope while these other characters have become cynical in the world. Things happen, and as the mystery unravels, we learn more about Gatsby and certainly the other people in the story,” Ferley explained.
“It’s also very much a love story. We learn that he loved a woman named Daisy Buchanan and lost her. When we meet her, she is married someone else, and Gatsby of course has a grand desire to win her back,” she added.
The company includes well-known Toronto-based film and TV actress Christine Horne as Daisy, Greg Gale as narrator Nick, and Jeffery Wetsch as Daisy’s husband Tom. Rounding out the cast is Jane Spence, Haley McGee, Nigel Hamer, Allison Grant, Shane Carty, and Stephanos Christou.
Show-goers will be immersed into the singular world of the characters, Ferley promised – whose “rich, bold” development throughout the story beggars the question of what makes a person great.
“It’s grappling with the American Dream, and what each of the characters are seeking to make their lives complete. We see that on all levels, with each one’s interpretations of what that idea means to them,” she said.
In turn, Ferley hopes the audience reflects on what it means to be successful.
“People have very different interpretations of this story. That’s one of the things that is fascinating about this one – you meet these characters, you take this journey with them, you recognize the love story within it. I think people are drawn to love on this scale, but there’s also this element of mystery which is very engrossing.”
Catch the Canadian premiere of The Great Gatsby before it closes on March 3.