first night review: The Great Gatsby @ the saenger theatre

The cast of The Great Gatsby @ The Saenger Theatre (Photo: TEG FOLKS)

First Night Review: The Great Gatsby @ The Saenger Theatre
Review by Dorian Hatchett

“I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy." - Jordan Baker

The Great Gatsby invites the audience to partake of this jazz age spectacle, where New York’s rich and nouveau-riche have entered a competition with deadly stakes. The only winner in this game is truth, which succeeds heartily in shining a bright green light on the hollow reality of wealth and societal convention.

Based on the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and featuring quotes directly from the book, this musical adaptation captures the wonder and debauchery of the post-World War 1 era in glittering lights and flawless scenery. 

Joshua Grosso as Nick Carraway is our guide, fumbling through a complex social hierarchy with as much grace as his midwestern roots can muster. His return to society after the great war is fraught; his shock at the decadence of Long Island isn’t naivety, but the realization that there are people living in an entirely different world than the war-torn one he has experienced. Grosso’s Nick is earnest and disappointed, but not totally surprised at the lengths to which his associates will go to maintain their place in the world.

Fans of the novel will be blown away by the scenery. Framing the whirlwind rekindled love affair of Jay Gatsby (Jake David Smith) and Daisy Buchanan (Senzel Ahmady) is an exquisite, technically marvelous set. Moving, shifting backdrops provide a seamless sense of time and place, with constant respectful callbacks to the source material.

There is perfect choreography: the ensemble cast are skilled dancers and narcissistic booze hounds. Part comic relief and part somber gut-check at the ephemeral nature of the joys of excess, they are a Greek chorus of honesty and naked ambition.

Likewise, the costumes (which won a Tony Award in 2024 for costume design) are a storytelling arc all their own. There is a sense of the infinite in the reflection of stage lights on pave rhinestones. Daisy and Jordan (Leanne Robinson) are two sides of the same coin; women trapped in a patriarchal mire where every choice comes with consequences. Their costume changes set a tone for each scene, adding in a layer of visual symbolism that Fitzgerald himself would have been proud of.  

See a world where everything is beautiful, and where, “Anything can happen, now that we’ve slid over this bridge.”

- The Great Gatsby: A New Musical plays at the Saenger Theatre March 24-29.  Click here for more information and ticketing
- More New Orleans theater reviews
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