← MickeyJoTheatre
MickeyJoTheatre
Why *some* critics hated THE GREAT GATSBY | Mickey-Jo's thoughts on the show's ★ review in the West End
00:29:39
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Mickey Jo
So our question here is when a show has extensive lavish sets, beautiful award winning costumes and strong performances, how the hell does it end up with a one star review? Finally, the critical discourse is catching up to me. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre and we are once again today going to be talking about the musical adaptation of the Great Gatsby, the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, or should I say one of its musical adaptations. There are famously a handful, but we're going to be talking about the version that is currently playing on Broadway at the aptly named Broadway Theatre and simultaneously here in London at the Colosseum, where it recently opened and was officially reviewed for the first time by many of London's press, where it mostly garnered mixed and negative responses. If you want to know what I thought of the show, I shared a three star review of not only the London production, but, you know, the show as a whole, having seen it four times in its life between its first ever performance at Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey and then its most recent opening night here. So you can go and take a watch or a listen of that to find out what I thought about it. But one of its most notable and most discussed reviews came from Arifa Akbar in the Guardian, who gave the show a one star rating. And there has been a huge amount of discussion about this because, you know, it's been a divisive piece of theatre. But a lot of people have thought that it was completely extraordinary and unfounded to give this show with a lot of objectively strong elements one single star out of five. And honestly, I wasn't initially going to make this video because I didn't want to wade into all of the drama that has now developed surrounding this and involved myself in other people's business. Then I remembered how much I love talking about critical discourse and I do genuinely enjoy these videos where we talk through different reviews and kind of analyze different critical perspectives. I think there's a lot of merit in doing that and in considering perspectives other than your own. And also I think there's more for me to say about the Great Gatsby because I shared many of my feelings. But there's a lot I want to say because of all of the responses that I got to my own review. There were a lot of people in my comments section saying I wasn't being nearly harsh enough and the show was actually not as good as I was saying there are a lot of people who said the show was brilliant five star reviews and they didn't understand why I was being so negative about it, and that not everything has to be nuanced and meaningful and not everything is Shakespeare. A notion that we're going to unpack a little bit in today's discussion. So grab your popcorn. We're going to talk through the one star review of the Great Gatsby and compare it to other London reviews as well as the show's critical reception back when it opened last year on Broadway. As always, I would love to know what you think of all of this and of these reviews in the comments section down below. And if you enjoy this, make sure that you're subscribed to me right here on YouTube for more videos coming very soon, more reviews, or if you'd prefer, go and give me a follow on your favorite podcast platform. In the meantime, let's talk about the one star review for the Great Gatsby. So let's dive right in then and take a read of this review. Because I've waffled enough, and if I'm being honest, I have been accused in the past of being all waffle and not enough syrup. So here it is, one star review from Arifa Akbar in the Guardian. I will let you know I recently met Arifa for the first time and got to know her a little better as a critic and as a person. We even went to go and see a show together on her invitation. Incredibly generous of her. And I find a lot of the time once you get to know the person, it's a lot easier to understand their critical perspective. But we'll talk more about that later on. For now, let's have a read. So this is in the Guardian. I'm reading from their website. The title is the Great Gatsby. A New Musical Review what a Swell party. This Ain't Followed by the rating 1 single star out of 5. F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic jazz age novel ought to be the perfect basis for a musical, but no amount of Charleston's from a fine cast can put the fears into this. Interestingly, my review elicited a lot of very astute comments about how it might seem as though the Great Gatsby would be great fodder for a musical, but the form presents a lot of challenges because of the notion of people singing their feelings and very emotionally declaring narrative ways, which is something I criticized the lyrics for in a story where many of the characters are very emotionally withdrawn and concealing. Ariva, though, says there is a strong argument for turning F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age critique of the American Dream into a musical. From the sound of the lavish parties at Jay Gatsby's mansion to the natural lyricism in its prose. And it is worth noting on either side of the Atlantic. For a few years now there have been multiple musical and immersive stage adaptations of the Great Gatsby. Damningly, she goes on to say, it does not transpose convincingly here, though not not for the lack of size or volume. Under the direction of Mark Bruni, it starts big in sound and look as the world of spoiled old money couple Tom John Robbins and Daisy BUCHANAN Francis Mala McCann collides with that of the self made Gatsby Jamie Moscato. But it has nowhere to go from there. With every ostrich filled scene and iceberg sized setting designed By Paul Tate DePooh III, it appears more like a Las Vegas casino with bursts of lurid light and ever more showboating sets. Now this is interesting because as I alluded to in the introduction to this comment, a lot of people responded to this one star review by saying how can you possibly say that it's only one star when it has strong creative elements, when the sets are as gorgeous, when the costumes are as gorgeous. And in fact Arifa kind of brilliantly here has subverted that idea and framed it not as a success but as an indictment of the musical, kind of missing the point of the story. We'll carry on. The music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Nathan Tyson comprise cruise liner material too, by turns trite, tinkly and bombastic from the opening number roaring on Onwards. It is unfortunate given the strong vocal capabilities of the cast, again giving deference to the cast's brilliant vocals, but fairly heavily criticizing the score. And I've said of London's newspaper critics in the past that not enough time in these reviews is dedicated to commentary on the score, so I'm just happy to hear it talked about. Honestly. Dominique Kelly's choreography gives period moves, Beyonce style inflections, but it looks sterile for the lack of emotional drama around it. While the book by Kate Kerrigan merely tells you what is going on and who is who. This is thing and this I think is the crux of one of the biggest problems in the Great Gatsby is it's to do with the book. This is a really smart point here by Arifa that the book merely tells you what is going on and who is who and it's more descriptive. And I think Nick as a character Nick Carraway, who is this narrator figure, who is our protagonist and who guides our perspective throughout the novel, is a little too early abandoned within the framing device of the book in favor of the more exciting characters that he meets. Once we get to know Daisy and Tom and Gatsby and we find out about all of the forbidden romances and the longing and the affairs, the book kind of just sideswipes to that slightly more colorful world. And I think this is actually something that we see fairly often in weaker books for musical theatre. You know, you go and see a play and you expect a sense of perspective and you expect a great sense of meaning. And then there are plenty of musicals whose books whose scripts only do the labor of moving us between songs and don't contend with any kind of dramatic strength. Moreover, I read a comment recently where someone said, well, it's never going to be able to do as much as the book because it's only a musical. And I hate that idea because there's so many brilliant masterpieces of musical theatre who have exceptional books. And I think the notion that a book inherently is just more capable of delivering nuance and depth than a musical adaptation, it sounds like something that ought to be correct, but I think that's underselling the emotional impact that musicals are capable of. A musical has many more tools in its arsenal than a book on paper, literally. Not only that, any visual adaptation, whether it's on stage, whether it's on screen, frees itself from all of that description that a book has to do in order to evoke a scene. If they want to tell you about these lavish surroundings, then they have to describe them in depth. And we have to find out about the china and the flowers and the gently wafting drapes and the sofas. And you can see that immediately when it appears before you in a film adaptation or on a stage. Giving you plenty of time then to acquaint us with all of the characters and afford them substantial emotional depth. A problem that the Great Gatsby has is it wastes its own time with the characters singing about the same ideas repeatedly. Jay Gatsby sings multiple songs about his relentless love for Daisy with no sense of the intrigue around his character or, you know, the nefarious possibilities of how he got to where he is now financially. There's a huge motivator for him in this sense of a lack of class mobility. No matter how much wealth he is able to accrue, he will always be rejected by old money society. That's only ever implied. We never hear about that from him. And in fact, Arifa goes on here to discuss the central couple. She writes that they fizz with charisma on the page in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, lighting up every room with their smiles. But here they are, smooth to two dimensions, as slick and empty eyed as those of Dr. T. Eckleburg's in the advert that looms behind them. They all seem breezy and rather amicable, including the supercilious Tom. While Gatsby is something of a cipher, that is no fault of the cast. The mood is simply too perky, the pace brisk and breezy, the story's heart subsumed by the mission to put on a high octane musical. Essentially this comes down to a tonal problem and the idea of transposing the mood of the book to something a little more fitting. A glitzy and romantic musical that finds feel good elements in an objectively very bleak and depressing story. There is no depth of emotion to the love story between Jay and Daisy, Aretha contends. No sultriness to Tom's affair with the wife of petrol pump attendant Myrtle, and no icy heat to the romance between Jordan and Nick Carraway, which I wish didn't exist whatsoever. Here she excitedly asks for his hand in marriage. But why? That's what I said. That's what I said. Gatsby's dodgy business is flat footedly conveyed in the song Shady. I forgot about that now I've been forced to remember it. While his associate Maya Wolfsheim is about as sinister as a Bugsy Malone extra. And it's not like expanding on a lot of those areas wouldn't be great fodder for musical theatre. Why couldn't we have explored the notion of Nick and Jordan being pushed towards each other, but each of them having these unspoken queer inclinations and recognizing a little bit of that in each other? We've talked about queer people in musical theatre before. I think it would have been fine. Also, I think exploring the darkness of Gatsby's backstory and his operations with Wolfsheim really would have contributed to the melody dramatic romance that they were portraying here because, you know, it's an indication of just how committed he is to Daisy, the length that he's willing to go to Back to the Guardian review, Arifa writes, Then there is the problem of Nick. Here we go. The show's narrator is far removed from the voice of Fitzgerald's lone observer. He resembles a relatable, hapless type from a modern relationship TV drama. Quite literally the Guy next door. I think I said something similar, that he was just sort of dumbfounded the whole time and was like gorsh rather than, you know, really observing in the same way that he did in the novel. He squirms when things turn bad and talks of journaling about his post Traumatic stress disorder from the Great War. I'd forgotten about that. And it's really not present in his character after that particular moment. He's so light hearted. The babbling tone of his narration turns Fitzgerald's prose, full of poetic restraint, into rambles, which is a big problem. And before we read through the final paragraph, I would like to convey to you how much weight that that problem carries, because it speaks to not only a failure in terms of adaptation. And you know, when something has source material, when something has celebrated and well known source material, it is going to be judged as an adaptation. I know people who love this show and who champion this show say like, well, it's not the book and it shouldn't be treated like. Like, forget about the book and just enjoy the musical on its own terms. And that's not what it is. The musical is selling tickets because people know what the Great Gatsby is. So it's acknowledging adaptation. And this is something that we talk a lot about in the theater because we see a lot of new translations of classic plays. We see a lot of new work inspired by classic plays or new adaptations thereof or updated versions thereof. And we see revivals of musicals with, you know, very different contexts recontextualized and restaged in very bold, different ways. Goodness knows, we see Shakespeare reinvented seven different ways to choose day. We see concept interpretations of these things and, you know, they have to be talked about in relation to their basis in relation to the source material. That has to be an important part of the conversation. And I think two things can be true simultaneously. It can be essential that they stand on their own and you can enjoy them without knowledge of the source material. But also they should be a half decent adaptation of that thing. And that's not the only reason why this is a problem. I mean, it makes it difficult for someone who knows and loves the book to be able to enjoy the musical, which I sense is what has happened here with Arifa. But further to that, she's identified that this key facet of the novel and a big part of why it works isn't present in the show. So it's as though a sledgehammer has been put through a supporting wall and everything started to collapse. Let's finish then with this final paragraph. Despite the glut of vocal and visual crescendos, again acknowledging the strengths of the show, the peaks of the story flatline from the violence by Tom that breaks Myrtle's nose, which is not played for intensity or Dr. Or fear. It's really a comic moment to the shooting at the ending, which Lord knows, has had its own share of drama and reactions, which I'm not even going to rehash here today. Fresh from Broadway, this production encaps. Oh, here we go. This production encapsulates the worst of peacockingly splashy entertainment, the kind whose soul has been suctioned out in the making. And there's a lot of passion here. And that's something I want to highlight to you as well, because I think it's very easy to criticize those who deliver written reviews. And people often very kindly say about my reviews, I mean, a lot of people also, while they disagree with my reviews and think that I'm incredibly pretentious. But I do get a lot of feedback for people who characterize me as being very balanced and very fair, which I try to be at all times. I also have several advantages because I'm here on YouTube, because I'm not being edited for a publication. For one thing, I'm not restricted by a word count, so I get to talk about both sides of things. I get to talk in detail. But for another thing, even when you're listening to me delivering a two star review, you can infer tone. And I don't think, aside from a couple of cases where I've gotten a little bit cross, I don't think it often comes across as particularly malicious or cutting because usually I'm speaking from a place of impassioned frustration where something ought to be better and something is fixable. And that's when I get the most like heated about something because I'm like, the option was right there. This was the possibility, how the hell did they end up at this? Or why has this thing got to go to the West End when there are so many original works like whatever, it comes from a place of passion. And that's easy for me to convey because you're looking at me, you're hearing me, you can hear it in my voice and you can infer tone. I think a lot of these newspaper reviews can feel dispassionate even though they aren't those final few lines from Arifa speak to, I think an enormous frustration around these kinds of shows, these kinds of musicals, which are adaptations of previous Things which feel, as she said, very visually splashy but a little soulless at the same time. So having read it, having talked through it, does it feel like a one star review? I have to say it does. I think, you know, you could put a two star rating on that and it would still seem as though that's appropriate to the review. But it also doesn't feel as though a one star rating isn't indicative of that particular response to the show, which I think is a fair response. Arifa didn't articulate anything there that I don't agree with and think the biggest shock in response to it has been people who identify the great vocals and the sets and the costumes and all of the strong creative elements and the big songs and the choreography and they're driving cars across the stage. And, you know, it's not stuff that she ignored in favor of just talking about the issues. It's stuff that she pointed out but identified as more of a problem than a benefit. And there's a whole conversation, a long conversation that we could have about a production that, you know, indulges in the world of the parties, but gets the motivations wrong and gets the romance wrong, being inherently misguided and inherently misreading the material fundamentally. And that, I think, is the place that I want for us to get to. That's good criticism. It can't just be like, were the vocals good? Was the lighting atmospheric? Was the set design effective? I read the same things over and over and over again in a lot of these reviews. And we're not having the big conversations like, like, is this the right way to tell this particular story? Did this feel true to the realities of these characters? And what message is being conveyed here and what lengths have the creatives gone to to empower that message? Does it make sense for a show that is critical ultimately of this party chasing mentality of the jazz age and the decadence of the Roaring twenties leans so far into all of that celebration and pomp and decadence, not only in its marketing, but also in its design and in its storytelling. In short, is any version of the Great Gatsby that really focuses on the parties missing the whole point? That's the notion that I take from Maree for Akbar's critical response to the show. And in that context, I do ultimately think that a one star review is appropriate. I also think, and this goes without saying, that people respond to things differently. And one person's one star show is another person's two star show is another person's three star show is clearly another person's four star show. And that's true both because theatre is subjective and we respond to art differently, but also because how we even arrive at those star ratings is also different. What means four stars to me can be different to someone else? Something can have a really big, substantial problem, but only one problem, and that can still be a four star show for me. It depends on how much of a problem that is. If a show has a really dreadful story or the lack of a story, I think that's probably lower than a four star review. Likewise, not everyone buys into the notion of itemizing a show and saying like, well, it gets one star for the performances and another stuff like the design and the lighting and then another star for the direction, the choreography, and another star for the score and another star for the script. So depending on whether or not each of those things was good will affect the overall outcome. Some people get very statistical about these things and you go into the world of 0.5s and everything gets little mathematical ratings. And I don't think that that's necessarily helpful or necessarily particularly true to your emotional response to a piece of art. I think inherently I at least don't feel as though I can make it that mathematical. And I'd probably go back at this point through many of my old reviews and there's probably a lot of things I gave four stars to that probably ought to be threes. There's some threes that probably ought to be twos. And I don't feel as though that means that I've become inherently harsher as a critic. I think I've just become more mindful about, you know, looking at different elements of a show and valuing different things. Especially in the world of, you know, glitzy musical theater. A medium which I will remind you, I champion and cherish and celebrate at every turn and can be so, so brilliant. Whether it's a light hearted, whimsical show like a Crazy for you or whether it's something more substantial and meaningful like a strange loop. Both of which musicals that I think are completely brilliant. But we do musical theatre no favors whatsoever when we say that inherently musicals can be a little bit silly and musicals don't have to stand up to the quality of plays or the books that they're based on. I don't agree with that whatsoever. Musicals are smarter and more dramatically capable than many of you are giving them credit for, considerably. So a pertinent part of this conversation, I suppose, would be to look elsewhere at the other reviews. What else did critics in London have to say about the London Coliseum opening? Well, the Stage newspaper gave it a four star review, calling it a feat of Spectacle and Seduction. WhatsOnStage.com came in a little lower at a three star review, with Alan Hood writing, the Great Gatsby isn't a great tuner. It's neither cynical enough to really explore the dark underbelly of the F. Scott Fitzgerald story with which it flirts, nor is it distinguished enough to provide the uplift of musical theatre at its best. But it's the epitome of a slick, escapist West End night out, shallow, loud and sumptuous, comparable with all the things that we've already been talking about, but very balanced at the same time. And also, this is another thing we can talk about acknowledging the appeal for many audience members, saying, this is what a lot of people are going to want from this show and that's something to be acknowledged as well. And reviewers and critics have each of them, I find a different perspective on who it is they're reviewing for and the purpose of their review. Is it just a buyer's guide to inform audiences about whether or not it's worth the ticket price? Is it indeed for the cast and creatives to appraise the work that they've done? Is it, you know, a mark in history about the show's initial reception that will be remembered? And are you reviewing this simply for its target demographics graphic? Are you reviewing this simply for its fans? Are you reviewing this for a broad audience or are you reviewing this only for theater goers like yourself? That's something worth considering. And that last option sounds a little bit like a criticism, but it isn't necessarily, because I think any personal response to a show is going to lack a little bit of objectivity. You are going to be talking about how you responded to it and so it'll be, you know, most comparable to the experiences of like minded individuals. Claire Alfrey for the Telegraph wrote that get a screechy clod hopping musical that amps up the Roaring Twenties cliches at the expense of anything Fitzgerald had to say about class, money and the scissoring chasms between appearances and reality. Book writer Kate Kerrigan foregrounds the romance between Gatsby and Daisy in ways that make their cryptic love affair the routine stuff of a thousand Broadway power ballads. That was a two star review. Andre Lekowski for timeout has given the show an unrated review. Timeout do not publish their one or two star reviews because they also sell tickets. But if they don't have a star rating, then you can infer that it's of those two options, he writes. If you're after piercing insights into the dark side of capitalism and the American dream, read the novel. If you're in the market for a generic but gorgeous looking musical romance with a Great Gatsby theme, then this will do, I suppose. Clive Davis for the Times, also without a star rating, I believe, called it big, brash, noisy and one dimensional. And it did fare largely better with many theater bloggers whose reviews I don't think it's necessarily fair for me to scrutinize on this platform, but many of whom also said that, you know, they felt the same way about much of the material, that there were big problems in the book or in the lyrics, and still arrived at a four star review Are we circling back to the previously discussed idea that London's professional newspaper critics are inherently a little more critical, a little harsher than the theatre bloggers who are more inclined to be fans of a show and have listened to the cast recording before it arrives in the West End? Or is this yet another example of an idea that I've mentioned before, whereby many of these critics who see an awful lot of plays because there are many more plays really than musicals produced in Lond, especially this year, especially at the moment we have so many plays and relatively few musicals opening. Are they more inclined because of that to treat these musicals like plays and place a considerable amount of weight on the book and on the themes and on the overarching message which are largely the shortcomings of the Great Gatsby? While the theatre bloggers place more weight on the performances and the songs. Much there to consider. But finally, if you're anything like me, you might be wondering how this compares to the critical reception that the show had on Broadway last year. Well, let's look that as well. For this I'm heading to the very useful website didtheylikeit.com which provides a helpful aggregate of all of the Broadway reviews of every opening. It was mixed in the New York Times reviewed by Laura Collins Hughes, she noticed that this adaptation was not terribly bothered either with the moral shadings of its title characters rise and fall, and was principally interested in a good time. When Nick utters the novel's sober final line about boats against the current the words have no heft. An ensemble of dancers is upstaging him anyway, wanting to give the audience one last moment at the party. I think Arifa said something very similar about his delivery of Fitzgerald's words lifted straight from the novel being undermined. Brittany Samuel for Broadway News called it nothing more than a modish echo of an over romanticized time period. Adam Feldman was mixed for timeout. He said the central romance loses the edge that makes it so compelling. The allure tragic for Gatsby of an unattainable class ascent, but noted will any of that matter where sales are concerned? Maybe not. Which is going to be the next thing that we will talk about? Sarah Holdren an out and out negative review according to this website for Vulture, this Gatsby feels like it belongs on a cruise or in a theme park, which again Arifa said the same thing. Robert Hoffler Also negative for the wrap and with many further mixed reviews and potentially only the review from theatrely being considered a positive one, it ought not perhaps to have been a surprise when the show was received this way in London. The only real difference is that the majority of Broadway outlets don't accompany star ratings to these reviews. So you just have to go by the way words. Whereas when something carries a one star review even before reading it, even without reading it, as I don't imagine everyone necessarily has, who is piling on criticism to are, it seems immediately very shocking. But what on earth would I be doing here as someone who calls myself a critic if not defending the rights of different critics to fairly and reasonably scrutinize theatrical productions as they see fit? And my verdict, I wish I had a gavel in this moment, is that that's what's happened here. I think this actually was a reasonably fair one star review of a product production that, you know, in the grand scheme of things, in the mix of different opinions, probably merited at least one one star review, one that would be balanced out by a handful that are much more positive. All of this building towards the question, what does this mean for the Great Gatsby? Well, there's a little bit of difference here between Broadway and the West End because the Broadway production didn't seem too slowed down by those negative reviews, nor indeed by the Tony nominations, which very quickly followed with Gatsby opening right at the end of the Broadway season last April. They did not receive that many Tony Award nominations. I think they only got one nomination and won their one nomination. So you know, that's a great statistical track record. That was for Linda Cho for costume design. But the show has continued to run. It's approaching the one year anniversary of its Broadway opening night. It has brought in replacement casting. It continues to do very well. Much of this, it must be said, due to the brilliant trailblazing efforts of Catherine Quinn for and that's showbiz working for part of the show social media and marketing team. The way that she has propelled that show's social media trajectory ought to be studied by future Broadway shows. She's brilliant. And if you've been seeing a lot of the Great Gatsby on your social media pages for more than a year now, it's because of Catherine. Now with London, it's a little bit of a different story because the run here is limited, which ought to indicate that there are fewer tickets to sell. It's only here for a finite time. It's only here until, I think the 7th of September. I seem to remember it's closing on my birthday birthday. But during that limited run, it's playing the London Colosseum, which I will point out to you, is a pretty vast house. Not that the Broadway Theatre is small, but let's talk about the duelling capacities at play here. Yeah, the Broadway Theatre has a capacity of 1761. It might be reduced even for the Great Gatsby because they closed off some of the rear seating in the mezzanine. I believe the London Colosseum, traditionally home to the English National Opera, has a capacity of just under two and a half, half thousand. It is a big, big room. It's a big room to fill. And the cast is full of stage stars and a handful of names with Corbin Blue, best known for the High School Musical movies, and Amber Davis, who recently led the UK tour of Pretty Woman and who is a legit trained musical theater performer but was also on Love island and so has a little bit of recognition for that, but not necessarily anyone of sort of stratospheric name to bring a huge amount of people to the theater. I think this is going to continue to sell well enough, but certainly I think it could have done with some better reviews than it received. Sometimes, though, that is just how the theatrical cookie crumbles, even when served with champagne. Those have been my thoughts about the reviews for the Great Gatsby. As always, very intrigued to know what you think about all of this in the comments section down below. And if you want to know a little more about what I thought about the show, you can go and watch or listen to my three star review shared recently here on YouTube or on Pod platforms. Make sure you're subscribed or following me wherever you're seeing my face or hearing my voice. There will be more from me very soon. Thank you for listening. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh, my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.