Comments (0) Best New York theater production that may never appear in New York - 2007
Gatz
In a wonderful party scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, various characters cling to one another as a band plays "Ain't We Got Fun." To answer the band's question, no, fun we ain't got—namely, we ain't got Elevator Repair Service's version of The Great Gatsby, entitled Gatz. And Gatz is very, very fun. Though Elevator Repair Service is a New York–based company and created and rehearsed Gatz in our fair city, the Fitzgerald estate has prevented the group from performing the piece in New York. (Apparently, they fear audiences might confuse ERS's seven-hour performance-art version with a straightforward adaptation by Simon Levy, which opened at the Guthrie in Minneapolis to middling reviews and which may be bound for Broadway—though this transfer seems unlikely.) This spring, however, ERS will debut its take on The Sound and the Fury at New York Theatre Workshop—the Faulkner estate, apparently, has a stronger taste for avant-garde theater collectives.
