Performers at Gatz at The Public clock into an entire day of work when they arrive at the theater – both literally and figuratively. In this eight-hour experience, a group of thirteen actors present the entirety of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby word for word to an audience. Beginning as workers at an office, the characters slowly emerge into the world of the book as their work day goes on. Gatz is backed by the well-known theater company Elevator Repair Service (ERS), which was founded in 1991 by John Collins with the goal of creating original theater usually with an ensemble cast. The theater scene in 1991 was very different than it is now, and ERS played a large role in pushing the boundaries of traditional theater and working with other mediums such as literature, dance, and poetry to further their performances.
The idea for Gatz originated in 1999, and Collins had never even read the book when his friend suggested using it as a performance medium. In 2004, the production had its first performance under the name Gatsby at Brooklyn’s Collapsible Hole, a small venue that prioritizes unique theater. The show transferred to the Performing Garage shortly after, and has had an extensive production history since then, including an international tour between 2005-2009. It first mounted at The Public in 2010, and became critically acclaimed after that performance. While the 2024 run of the show was not Gatz’s first performance at The Public, it has been advertised as its last in New York City as ERS does not plan on reviving it soon.
The production has gone through decades of development since that first performance, and eight of thirteen original 2004 cast members were a part of the most recent production at The Public. Scott Shepherd, the narrator of the story, has been with the play for twenty years in his role. This is an incredible feat when you consider that he reads the entirety of The Great Gatsby at every performance.
When it first premiered, Gatz split the current eight hour experience into two, three hour performances seen on consecutive nights. Collins found that the audience lacked the immersive experience he wanted them to feel in his initial idea of the production. He also believes that the first half of the book is not as interesting as the second, and found some people would not show up to the second performance, missing the most climactic and important moments of the novel. While traditional plays are written with a live audience in mind, The Great Gatsby was written to be read instead of performed, therefore making it crucial that Collins created a rhythm to the story. The two Gatz performances were then conflated into one, and the full day Great Gatsby experience has been performed ever since. In one night, you are allowed to experience the character’s thoughts and emotions in real time, and truly imitate the feeling of working an entire 9-5 shift.
The intersection between theater and daily lives is a recurring theme within ERS’s productions as they try to understand the balance between the self and performance. The company’s first production, Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher, set the 1917 Dada play by Tristan Tzara in a modern day office. Dadaist theater originated as an artistic movement of plays with absurdist poetry and other forms of physical expression created as a way of expressing anti-war sentiments. ERS’s Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher came in under an hour long but used every second to the fullest, pushing the boundaries of traditional theater. The script was only seven pages long, but the production used dance, music, and absurdist props like a three foot long toothbrush to expand upon the performance.
Another idea ERS has examined within their past works is the courtroom, through productions like Arguendo in 2012 and Baldwin and Buxley at Cambridge in 2023. Similarly to Gatz, these two productions present court cases as they occurred verbatim, creating theater out of real historical events. This performance style forces audience members to confront the verbatim past, challenging the They have found this form of performance to be a unique method of transforming the audience’s pre-conceived notions of existing texts, and pushing the boundary to what theatrical performance can be. m to understand these events in a new light.
While Gatz was Elevator Repair Service’s first novel-turned theatrical performance, it is not their only production of this form. Their production The Sound and The Fury comes in at only three hours long and features only one chapter from William Faulkner’s novel of the same name. They also have a 2022 production of James Joyce’s Ulysses where seven performers sit down for a reading of the novel but descend into madness the more they drink throughout the duration of the play.
This style of verbatim text to performance is almost entirely unique to ERS. They have found this form of performance to be a unique method of transforming the audience’s pre-conceived notions of existing texts, and pushing the boundary to what theatrical performance can be. It is a difficult task to transform a well known piece of literature like The Great Gatsby, and an even more challenging feat to get an audience to sit down and watch it for six hours in Gatz. ERS must be doing something right, because for the past 30 years audiences have continuously been drawn to their ensemble driven performances that challenge the boundaries of what theater can be.
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