Play Guide [356k PDF] - Arizona Theatre Company

The Great GatsbyLEVYCostume rendering for Daisy byDavid K. Mickelsen, costumedesigner for ATC’s The Great Gatsbyto the Fitzgerald Estate once again with awards in hand... and thistime they said yes, with the caveat that they would have to approveit first. 2 years later I presented them with a draft, which they lovedand approved as the official stage adaptation of the novel.JB: With a work as rich in language and imagery as The GreatGatsby how did you make decisions regarding what to keep andwhat not to include in your adaptation?SL: The challenge of honoring Fitzgerald and this massively iconicnovel, as well as honoring the craft of theatre, required getting deepinto the novel, into Fitzgerald himself, into all the essays and bookswritten about the symbolism and metaphors and themes. I readeverything! I wanted to know, intuitively and intellectually, whatworked and what didn't with all the other adaptations (film, TV,theatre, opera, ballet), and with other successful and unsuccessfulstage adaptations of other famous novels. For a period of my lifeI became a walking encyclopedia on adaptation. But at the endof that journey I realized that, ultimately, I needed to know whoI was in this adaptation. What sang to me? Where was my heartinside these characters, these enormous ideas? What did I wantto say about Illusion vs. Reality, the pursuit of the AmericanDream, greed, the advantaged vs. the disadvantaged, Westvs. East, disillusionment and the irrecoverable past, and mostimportantly, love and betrayal? Over the last 6 years there havebeen so many rewrites, but at the heart of them the centralquestion has always been how do I use the language of theatre(the "plastic elements" as Tennessee Williams used to call them)to honor the beauty of Fitzgerald's prose. Fitzgerald's plotis what it is - illusion, love, pursuit of the American Dream,adultery, betrayal, death, disappointment, and the need to "beaton" - so one uses or adapts or creates dialogue to be true toFitzgerald, to tell The Story (all of which has been agonizedover and tested again and again), but the success of the stageadaptation will not be so much in What is said but How itis presented so that it honors the themes and symbols andmetaphors that make this the great American novel.JB: There has only been one previous production of yourscript. What did you learn from that?SL: Like any playwright/adapter, the primary thing I learned isthat I needed to keep rewriting! Rhythm is essential to anythingActor Marta Reiman, who playsMyrtle Wilson in ATC’s productionof The Great Gatsby.I create. That production showed me where the hiccups are: Sometimes it was a word, a line, anentire scene, even a character. I did a major rewrite after that.Arizona Theatre Company Play Guide 14