GATZ

Having just recovered from the theatrical experience of a lifetime, I figure I should try to explain just how truly cool The Elevator Repair Service's GATZ is.  Which might be a little futile, since tickets were sold out the day it came back to The Public Theater and it hardly needs more accolades, but I'll still make a go of it.

This is a theatrical endurance test.  My back still hurts from sitting in the Newman Theater's rather uncomfortable seats.  The audience sits down at 3 PM and the play is over at around 11 PM.  That includes two intermissions and a dinner break (I went to the B Bar & Grill, which was delicious), but that's still really freaking long.  But it is so worth it.  Set in an grimy, dingy office, the play begins with a man sitting down to his desk, discovering his computer isn't working, finding a copy of Fitzgerald's book, and beginning to read.  As he continues to read, the other people in his office begin to fall into place as the character from the novel.  As the play progresses, it seems that the text begins to take over and it becomes hard to tell who's in charge: the people populating the world of this office or Fitzgerald's meticulously chosen words.  Slowly but surely the evidence that this is an office is taken away, and by the time the narrator gets to the last chapter the files and computers that cluttered the desks have been whisked away, leaving Nick alone with the text.  Quite frankly, it's somewhat disturbing.  The light has faded to a blue gray, the sound design is gone (the technician/actor leaves after discharging his roles as various NYC people, Michalis, and the Lutheran Minister) and much of the furniture has been removed.  It's remarkably unsettling, but you can't take your eyes off the stage in much the same way that the people of the Ash Heaps are transfixed by the accident that kills Myrtle Wilson.  It is truly remarkable.  Only Fitzgerald's text remains.  And that is the only text involved in this production.  It is ostensibly a live action audiobook.  True, other things are said on stage, but they are not audible and gradually the tasks of the office stop intruding as everyone gets wrapped up in playing their parts.  The only complaint I might make about the productions regards Jordan, who takes her epithet "jaunty" very seriously which renders her performance somewhat robotic, but truly this production was remarkable.

Also, the actor who plays Nick has all 49,000 words of the text memorized.  It makes you want to cry out to the skies "What is this madness!?", right?