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The Great Gatsby

 
Stephanie Green Review by Stephanie Green 4 Published: 23 Apr 2022 Multiple Venues Show Dates: 21 Apr 2022-11 Jul 2022

Manic parties and manic dance, glorious swirls of colour, Chanel-inspired floating dresses and jazz from the Roaring Twenties, contrasted with the green light throbbing in the distance across the bay, so near and yet so elusive, symbol of the unobtainable - these are the two main experiences one takes away from the choreographer David Nixon of Northern Ballet’s adaptation of Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the iconic work of the 20th century literature exploring the American Dream. A medley of jazz, dance and song woven together by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, and magnificently played by the live Northern Ballet Sinfonia, including the Charleston and Tango. Poignant, with soupy, soaring soundtracks for the doomed love affairs.

dance, colour, vitality and witty asides, glorious lighting, set and costumes

The company has become identified with story-ballet, classical ballet with contemporary expressivity and The Great Gatsby is ideal material for them: Gatsby, the reclusive millionaire’s unrequited love for Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan’s affair with Myrtle, the garage owner’s wife and his consequent anguish. However, the subtlety of Scott Fitzgerald’s critique of the sordid underbelly of the American Dream is lacking inevitably. How much a ballet can adapt a novel is problematic but Nixon has concentrated on his own strengths, focusing on the emotional relationships and the dramatic contrasts of mood and location, where full cast dance on a wide stage, with witty touches, playing party guests against the sober, strict conformity of the serving staff, which is then followed by intense, claustrophobic love scenes.

Gatsby, danced by Joseph Taylor, often expresses his enigmatic restraint. Abigail Prudames as Daisy is a confused bright young thing. Lorenzo Trossello as Buchanan is wonderfully louche, muscular and loose-limbed - suggesting his sexuality. However the stars of the show are Minju Kang as Myrtle in her vulgarly loud orange, many layered dress. The sensitivity of her sensual love scene with Buchanan is a highlight, as is the moving portrayal by Riku Ito as her abandoned husband, George, with his heart-breaking soliloquy with a garage tyre.

Lighting by Tim Mitchell expressively compliments Jérôme Kaplan's sets: Gatsby’s airy mansion and broadwalk with its view of the bay, the warm brown colours of the sophisticated Art Deco-inspired New York apartment and the enigmatic Mirror Hall, where the dancers’ moves are surrealistically reflected, and lastly the Edward Hopper feel of the bleak tonal shades of the garage where the American Dream has failed. This is where the contrast between the benefactors of the capitalist (criminal) world and the victims of the American Dream is most vividly expressed. However, the attempt to portray Gatsby’s dealings with the underworld with cartoon-like mobsters in long black coats and hats was more humourous than sinister.

A shame that Act II loses its way: laboured plotting of ‘business’ with the car keys, and then Myrtle’s death whizzed over, leaving one cold. But the glorious Act I with its explosion of dance, colour, vitality and witty asides, glorious lighting, set and costumes make this a memorable show. It is also David Nixon’s ‘swan-song’ as we learn that he is retiring after 20 years as Artistic Director but I wish his successor, Federico Bonelli, all the best in continuing this company’s success.

Amir Nisi

Stephanie Green

Stephanie Green has reviewed Theatre and Dance in Edinburgh since 2011 but previously travelled widely, mainly in Eastern Europe and Russia, writing about puppetry. She also studied shadow puppetry and sacred dance in Bali. In the 1970s, she trained as a puppeteer at the Little Angel, London and later worked at the alternative In the Heart of the Beast Mask and Puppet Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. After training at the Place, the London School of Contemporary Dance, in her 20s she then gave up dancing until starting again in her 60s just for fun. She has recently danced in a community group with Barrowland Ballet (at the Edinburgh Fringe, 2013), Oceanallover and at the South Bank, London as part of the Festival of the Silver Age. She is also a novelist, playwright and poet. www.stephaniegreen.org.uk/

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Mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby has a penchant for lavish parties and beautiful women. As the sparkling façade of his world begins to slip, the loneliness, obsession and tragedy that lies beneath is revealed in one of Northern Ballet’s most treasured productions. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel is brought to life as dancers glide across the floor in gorgeous Chanel-inspired costumes to a cinematic score by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett CBE.
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