http://blog.calarts.edu/2012/12/03/the-great-gatz-at-redcat/ News from California Institute of the Arts Fri, 17 May 2013 14:27:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://blog.calarts.edu/2012/12/03/the-great-gatz-at-redcat/comment-page-1/#comment-64858 Kameron Steele Fri, 07 Dec 2012 01:40:20 +0000 http://blog.calarts.edu/?p=35304#comment-64858 A Tale of Two Nicks:
Just as with “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” , the 8½ hour long theatrical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel by the Royal Shakespeare company in 1980, the success “Gatz” comes from a combination an exquisitely written first-person subjective voice, and an actor who is able to dynamically carry that voice for the duration. Roger Rees as Nicolas Nickelby and Scott Shepherd as Nick Carraway have both met the greatness of the original with their layered and generous performances. Shepherd, however, does not have the representative reality of Gatsby’s world created around him the way Rees did with “Nickelby”. The “Gatz” audience, thus, experiences the world of the play primarily through the fascinating vocal clarity of Shepherd. The divide created between the reality he paints with his narrative voice and that of the low-rent office he inhabits give us the space to imagine the world of “The Great Gatsby” vividly and personally. At the same time, the epic nature of the production, a kind of anomaly in this age of Twitter feeds and Facebook posts, instantly creates a bonding among the audience members. By the end of the 8 hours, we’ve all come out a little different than we went in. We have each other, and the new “Nick” to thank for it.

]]>