The Great Gatsby Opening Scene

On October 23rd, 2015, I went and saw the closing night of The Great Gatsby at San Jose State’s university theater. The story was originally by F. Scott Fitzgerald, however, it was adapted to the stage by Simon Levy and directed by Laura Long. The play is about Nick Carraway (played by Alex Draa), who visits his cousin Daisy Buchanan (played by Sarah Haas) and her husband Tom Buchanan (played by Niko Parras). Nick’s neighbor, Jay Gatsby (played by Spencer Greene) is in love with Daisy from years ago. As the play continues, the deceit and lies of these characters become unraveled and everything falls apart. The acting overall was incredibly impressive as they were believable in their roles. In the first scene, we could see everyone’s personalities …show more content…
As the play goes on, he discovers that no one cares and he states that he is from “Minneapolis” in an almost dejected manner. This helps exemplifies how Nick is trying hard to fit into the new crowd he’s been hanging around with. As Nick confronts Tom and Daisy, he loses his cool for the first time in the entire play. Draa’s anger in this scene shows how truly disgusted Nick is at this point with the actions of his peers around him. Parras shows no regret as Tom. In fact, the entire scene he had no sense of guilt that Gatsby was dead because of what he has done. Parras continues to play Tom as a brute who does not care for people who stand in his way. Haas however, played Daisy to have a very distinct emotion of fear. Subtle, but it’s obviously different from shame. Haas delivers the line “You were always my favorite cousin Nick,” with more hopes that he will not expose her than guilt over Gatsby’s death. There is a subtle difference between the lack of guilt between Tom and Daisy, but Haas and Parras are very …show more content…
Everything about The Great Gatsby is grand, and the set helps set the scene. The long curtain plays with the idea of mass and how important it is. It draws the eyes up where often actors will walk from the catwalk onto a balcony. The light they project on the curtains also helps set the entire scene. In a scene where Nick and Jordan (played by Emily Claire) are having lunch, Jordan is recalling a memory from her past. There is a use of crossfade lighting. The memory is in warm colors and Nick and Jordan are in cooler colors. This made a clear distinction of what we should be looking at and gave the audience a clear separation of time without having to have a physical separation. One design choice I did not agree with was the use of a make-shift car. At some point Nick, Jordan, and Tom get into Gatsby’s car to go downtown. They chose orante arm chairs and a pole that a wheel rested upon. I understand that budgets are an issue and of course, we could not have an actual car on stage. The ornate shape of these chairs fit the set, but did not fit the idea of a vehicle and pushed my suspension of disbelief too