I wanted to love this. I love the source material, and I love immersive theater...although when an immersive show goes wrong, it can really go wrong. Case in point: Immersive Gatsby.
Let's start with the positives: The cast was fantastic. Full of energy, full of enthusiasm, willing to play and feed off the audience - they did the best with what they have to work with, and I hope they go on to bigger and better.
The set design felt a little scrambled, but I only got to see two set pieces - the main ballroom where we're fed most of the essential exposition (don't worry, there's a bar) and Myrtle's shabby apartment - which was very well appointed, I just wish I was granted more opportunities to see other settings (we'll get to that gripe soon).
So, great cast and cocktails - why the one star review? Ok, I'm gonna let 'er rip:
First of all, the front of house experience was rushed and thoughtless. As soon as I walked in the door (which was located non-ceremoniously next to a Starbucks - could they maybe dress it up like a speakeasy entrance so there's at least some playfulness as we enter?), I was rushed into a line at the back of the lobby. I had a bag, and some other audience members in line had bags of various kinds - purses, shopping bags, one guy even had a backpack - but there was no bag check offered. We just had to walk around with our stuff for the whole of the play.
We were led from the venue lobby into a kind of vestibule where a couple of actors recited the rules - don't touch the actors, don't be a drunk jerk, etc. - and then we were quickly ushered to the performance space, the aforementioned giant ballroom of expository importance.
I had purchased a VIP ticket but I had to hunt down a house manager and tell them in order to even have this acknowledged. They didn't ask to see my ticketing email, I could have totally been lying to them. But if you're planning on pulling that scam, don't bother - I had to wait several minutes for my VIP "perk", which was a big gift bag containing a bunch of tissue paper, a drink ticket, and two little pieces of chocolate. That was it. No special experiences or extra scenes, no easter eggs, no perks that usually come with an immersive experience. Just some chocolate and a big bag that I now have to figure out how to get rid of.
One of the selling points of this play is that the audience is encouraged to show up dressed in their finest Gatsby-era drag, and it's a cute idea...until you're waiting for the play to start and realize it's often difficult to tell the difference between legit cast members and tipsy extroverts suffering from Main Character Syndrome. But maybe that's the party vibe they're going for. If so, good for them!
The show starts, the actor playing Nick does a great job of bringing us into the world of the novel, and the actor playing Gatsby does a great job of being impossibly handsome, and Daisy, Tom and Myrtle waste no time showing us their many talents. It feels like we're in good hands.
After a hearty dollop of expository dialogue, sections of the audience are led to different areas. The rest of us are commanded into dance rehearsal because we're all supposed to know the Charleston. I ended up spending what felt like an eternity enduring this dance rehearsal, as I watched groups to my left and right get peeled away and herded into other experiences. Is this my fate? I came to explore an immersive world of F. Scott Fitzgerald but instead I need to just buck up and spend the night learning a dance move? Oh boy.
Finally I took fate into my own hands and snuck into the next group being led to another area, and wound up in Myrtle's apartment with about 15 other audience members. We were all squeezed into some less than comfy couches and before you could say the word "problematic", the actors had us playing spin the bottle.
Now, I'm all for a "fortune favors the brave" mentality as an audience member, and when I went to shows like the amazing "Then She Fell", I was challenged to push my limitations and be generous with my definition of intimacy. But I took risks because I felt like the cast, the director, the writers of this play were taking care of me as an audience member. I felt like they were making an important point that might better me as a person if I would only follow their lead and give a little of myself to the characters.
Immersive Gatsby's version of this trust-fall exercise is to ask audience about the last time they had an orgasm, and to demand audience members kiss each other and mime their favorite sex positions. It felt invasive. It felt uncomfortable. It felt like something that's going to end up turning around and biting the production in the backside if they're not careful. All I know is, I wanted out of that room before the bottle stopped spinning and it pointed at me. (Thankfully I was spared.)
There were tech snafus too - the show's young, they'll work them out. Hopefully they fix the bigger issues soon. read more