'The most remarkable achievement in theater not only of this year but also of this decade' New York Times.
'A strangely seductive, often revelatory, and altogether ingenious production...' Chicago Sun-Times.
James Gatz that was really, or at least legally, his name.
One morning in the shabby office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter on his desk. He starts to read it out loud and doesn't stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it's no longer clear whether he's reading the book or the book is transforming him.
8 hours long and with a cast of 13, Gatz is by far the New-York-based Elevator Repair Service Theatre Company's most ambitious endeavor yet not a retelling of the Gatsby story but an enactment of the novel itself. Fitzgerald's American masterpiece is delivered word for word, startlingly brought to life by low-rent office staff in the midst of their inscrutable business operations.
The schedule of performance is as follows:
Act 1 2 hours and 5 minutes
Interval 15 minutes
Act 2 1 hour and 15 minutes
Long Interval 1 hour and 15 minutes
Act 3 1 hour and 25 minutes
Interval 15 minutes
Act 4 1 hour and 30 minutes