Posting some more thoughts on Friday’s performance, which I thought was actually a good musical as long as you’re not too attached to the original book. For context, when I saw the Papermill production, I had not read the book or seen the movie(s) so I didn’t know the finer details of the plot, but I read the novel soon after. And I think the current version of the musical on Broadway presents a great big budget spectacle show, but with different characterizations and without as much of the commentary, as it leans more into the romance/melodrama of the story itself (with the primary focus being on Daisy and Gatsby).
Like I mentioned in my previous post, giving Nick the opening song was probably the best change they could have made. Without establishing Nick as the main character early on (Gatsby sang the opening number originally), it was confusing to me about why we were following him around when he went to the city with Tom and everything, and he kind of faded into the ensemble sometimes. But when he sings Roarin’ On, it sort of establishes him both as the main character for the audience to follow, as well as focuses more on him being new to town, which makes more sense for him to seem like a fish out of water in subsequent scenes. (And it also made his ending narration make more sense too.)
The other part of this change I liked is that when Gatsby was singing the number, it takes away his mystique and it seems like he’s actively involved in the party scene and mixing with everyone else. So when they tried to play up how mysterious he was, it felt disingenuous, but now we don’t really see him until Nick does (outside of a quick glimpse at the top of the show).
The problem now with Gatsby is that we never really see his public persona. In most media, he seems to usually be portrayed as a suave charming guy who hides his longing for Daisy under that veneer but we get maybe 30 seconds of the suave Gatsby before he launches into For Her, which is just super on the nose in how he talks about being in love with Daisy and how he built his entire fortune for her (if I were Nick and this were my first time meeting him, I’d probably think he was a bit of a creep). And his other song in act 1 before meeting Daisy (Only Tea) basically just depicts him as a nervous wreck, so we never get a chance to see a smooth-talking Gatsby.
Outside of the opening, I don’t know if they actually changed Nick that much or if Noah Ricketts just grew into the character more or if the reframing of the story really just improved my perception, but I found The Met a lot more charming and funny this time around, whereas previously I had been annoyed at Nick’s indecision about what to do (also a marked departure from the Nick of the novel).
Nick and Jordan also worked better as a pair for me. Before, it seemed like Jordan was way too cool for him, but they had some nice banter during both New Money and after Only Tea that had good chemistry, and it also provided a nice contrast to the emotion of Daisy and Gatsby’s reunion.
I liked Absolute Rose more than Sophisticated, though I still don’t think it’s a particularly memorable song, but it does do a good job of incorporating book scenes for Daisy to be setting up Jordan and Nick, and the refrain of “absolute rose” adds a bit of a thematic thread for that song down to Beautiful Little Fool, while also establishing the kind of person Daisy is.
I don’t remember it exactly but I think they made some changes to Past Is Catching Up to Me that made me like it less. It feels more like a generic power ballad now, whereas previously I remembered it having some momentum and a little bit of tension. La Dee Dah With You is the new party song in act 2 and it’s a fun number with some spirited dancing, but I liked some of the commentary that Bootstraps had before.
I think in general the show refocused a bit to be more about the actual events happening to the main characters and didn’t feel like it needed to try to include all the themes from the book (hence, the excision of Ol’ Owl Eyes), which in general makes it a better musical (though perhaps a less good adaptation). But the problem with the second act is that some of the events that relate to wider ranging themes sort of have to happen to finish the story and it feels a bit like moving pieces around so they can line up correctly, but some of the choices the characters make don’t quite feel as organic. Like I don’t know why they end up at the Plaza all together when it seems like Daisy and Gatsby just want to run away (they’re even driving in the same car without anyone else!) or why Jordan and Nick go with Tom when they both kind of despise him. And even after the scene at the Plaza, the car arrangements heading back home don’t quite make sense either (why would Daisy drive with Gatsby if she doesn’t want to be associated with a bootlegger? Why would Tom let Gatsby go after Daisy alone?). So it seems like the characters have been manipulated into these situations just so the rest of the plot can happen so that Nick can comment on it at the end, but by this point the characters are different enough from the book that it doesn’t quite make sense for them to be doing the same things, and the tone set in the first act doesn’t seem to line up with the events happening in the second act or the resolution it’s trying to get to.
Speaking of the ending though, I also think that was improved. Without Ol’ Owl Eyes, the funeral scene is more streamlined, with no dialogue and just a short reprise of New Money, which I think perfectly demonstrates all we really need to know for this scene. And Nick’s closing narration makes a lot more sense given that he was set up as the narrator in the beginning, and I thought the reprise of Roarin’ On was great. I’m not sure if Beautiful Little Fool was actually shortened or if it just feels that way but the lyrics seemed more trite and on the nose than before, so I kind of wished they just replaced it with a different song altogether (and I didn’t feel like I could see the character of Daisy that we had seen so far actually singing this sentiment).
Given that the orchestra has a slightly different makeup, it does seem like they reorchestrated the show, and I think it’s for the better. At Papermill I had complained it sounded too much like a pop-score, divorced from period elements to the point where it was strange to see people in flapper dressers dancing the Charleston to the score, but I think they literally jazzed up the orchestrations a bit, so that even if the music itself wasn’t quite true jazz, it sounded more like something that could have come from the time period. The songs in general worked decently enough in the scenes (other than the ones I complained about), but I’m not sure that any of them were that notable.
Anyways, I’m very impressed at how much work they did on the show in such a short period of time, and I’m curious if they’ll keep changing it throughout previews. I had been dismissive of it before, but I could see this actually getting a Best Musical nomination (though it’s definitely not guaranteed), and it’ll be nominated for all the scenic/design elements (set, lighting, costumes, probably choreography as well).
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