Photo by Gene Pittman
Though I have yet to see the Public Theater incarnation of Elevator Repair Service’s masterpiece, Gatz, I did view it in its entirety years ago at the Wooster Group’s Performing Garage space in Soho. A killer concept—a reading of the complete text of Fitzgerald’s fine American novel, The Great Gatsby, while simultaneously shadow-performing the work on stage and recontextualizing the action as if in a drab work office—with all of the inter-office relationships that entails.
Photo by Mark Barton
Because of legal entanglements with Fitzgerald’s estate the work is only now officially seeing the light of day in New York City at The Public. Profoundly moving at times, Gatz is brilliant, though something of a workout clocking in at six and a half hours. (I viewed it in sessions over two days). A pantomiming of the ephemeral, of lyrical beauty, Scott Shepard shadows and participates in the action on stage while always reading from the novel, and the experience is extraordinary.
Photo by Chris Beirens
