We’re writing 20s again. However, director Claudia Bossard does not draw too many parallels to the “Roaring Twenties” in her dramatization of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby”, which premiered on Friday at the Schauspielhaus Graz. 100 years ago, the whites in the USA were still firmly in the saddle. Instead of dealing with diversity and wokeness, they prefer to deal with themselves.
The entertaining evening, which retells the plot of the book, which has been filmed several times, with astonishing accuracy, is the portrait of a narrow-minded, self-confident white society that does not yet know that it will one day have to go. In a single scene, Bossard takes a political look at our own 1920s, pitting Katrija Lehmann as Myrtle on a talk show for a major testimony involving US Vice President Kamala Harris and the inaugural poem by Amanda Gorman (on her chic bright yellow coat remembered in the scene): Yes, “the hill we climb” is steep and has not yet reached its peak – but the climb is unstoppable.
The palatial mansion of the mysterious young millionaire Jay Gatsby (Andri Schenardi plays the role that Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio have already embodied in the film, reserved, almost shy) is designed by Frank Holldack and Elisabeth Weiß by one and only one metal scaffolding set up by the empty pool, but you can still have a good party here. This is also ensured by the performances of a four-piece live band, sweaty dance routines from tango to rave and an “All of Me” song belted out together with devotion.
It’s about imposture and profiteering, about white trash and the American dream, about attractiveness and jealousy, fame, wealth and reality. The Swiss Bossard, who also works at the Kosmos Theater and the Volkstheater in Vienna and was nominated for a Nestroy Prize in 2020 for her Graz production of “Die Physiker”, also relies on the magic of the 20s in terms of costumes – how style icons act, for example “Daisy” Lisa Birke Balzer and “Nick” Frieder Langenberger – and always creates funny scenes. In a “Pacific Bell” telephone booth it can sometimes get quite cramped, and a mixture of water skiing and high-altitude flight is also skilfully staged.
The ending, however, doesn’t really want to take off. After two hours there are some dead and little knowledge. The fall of the American empire has long been underway. One would have liked to have seen Bossard’s vision of the 1930s, for example. The 2030s.
(SERVICE – “Making a Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, translated and edited by Claudia Bossard and Barbara Juch. Direction: Claudia Bossard, Stage & Costumes: Frank Holldack, Elisabeth Weiß, Choreography: Marta Navaridas, Composition: Antonia Manhartsberger, Alice Peterhans, Anna Tropper-Lener With: Lisa Birke Balzer, Henriette Blumenau, Fredrik Jan Hofmann, Frieder Langenberger, Katrija Lehmann, Nico Link, Alexej Lochmann, Mathias Lodd, Alice Peterhans, Andri Schenardi Live music: Antonia Manhartsberger, Alice Peterhans, Anna Tropper-Lener, Felix-Paul Mayerhofer Schauspielhaus Graz, Haus Eins, Next performances on January 18, 19, 20, 26 and 29 and on February 10 and 18 www.schauspielhaus-graz.com )
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