Free-flowing champagne - illegal, it is Prohibition, after all - and a well-tailored suit can make its mark. Gatsby’s mysterious wealth (much like Donald Trump’s, currently valued at $3.1 billion, despite the former president standing knee-deep in a civil fraud trial for allegedly inflating assets) allures the reader. The author once wrote to his agent, “I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works.” The overly earnest production sidesteps the undercurrent in Fitzgerald’s writing.

Paper Mill Playhouse, a regional theater just across the Hudson River and within striking distance of Broadway, is currently staging a new musical version with former Newsies star Jeremy Jordan as Jay Gatsby. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby has received multiple film and stage adaptations, including Baz Luhrmann’s epic 2003 re-telling starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. Jeremy Jordan as Jay Gatsby in Paper Mill Playhouse’s “The Great Gatsby.” Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.į. The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you: The not-so-great Gatsby Get the Daily Brief Audiences and critics have been mesmerized and confounded by these leading male anti-heroes as we collectively grapple with conscience and accountability - to our loved ones, our communities, and ultimately, to ourselves. However, the vitriol occasionally backfires, like that time Gaetz body-shamed a queer teen, and she flipped the script to raise more than $168,000 for women’s reproductive rights.Įven in our most progressive spaces (what could be more queer-inclusive than the theater?), a trio of new productions based on literary works puts problematic characters center stage. Social media makes it even more digestible to scroll through quick bites of insanity. “Haters gonna hate,” sings Taylor Swift in “Shake It Off.” But many of us can’t help gravitating toward the crazy, also known as modern times.įrom Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) podcast rants against fellow Republicans to his not-so-secret interest in becoming Florida’s next governor, rationally minded Americans’ eyes widen and glaze over with each new revelation.

Aladdin rubs the lamp