Staging Fitzgerald's elegy to lost innocence

What great American novel narrowly escaped being titled "Under the Red, White and Blue"? And initially earned its author only $31 in royalties? And inspired the name of a Seattle rock band?

Correct answer: "The Great Gatsby," the iconic F. Scott Fitzgerald tale now previewing in a stage adaptation at Seattle Repertory Theatre.

"Gatsby" has sold literally millions of copies since its initial 1925 publication triggered little critical excitement and lackluster sales. Until the late 1940s, in fact, it was generally viewed as a "light" period piece, a colorful evocation of America's Jazz Age.

But Fitzgerald's fine-tuned elegy for America's lost innocence is now required reading in many schools. And the eponymous Jay Gatsby has become the iconic distillation of the rootless, self-made, questing American male — whose wealth cannot shield him from heartbreak or mortality.

"Gatsby" unfolds amidst the self-indulgent gaiety of the young nouveau riche who, after surviving World War I, went on a hell-bent bender. But if the author was capturing his own time, he was also exploring something intrinsic in the American experience. (In his own experience, sadly, Fitzgerald ended his days disappointed, ignored, alcoholic and broke, at age 44.)

Simon Levy spent five years writing his "Gatsby" adaptation, which debuted this summer at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis under Seattle Rep artistic director David Esbjornson's command. Esbjornson is also staging the Rep version, which retains some of the Guthrie cast, including Lorenzo Pisoni as Gatsby and Heidi Armbruster as his beloved Daisy.

This isn't Levy's first take on Fitzgerald's oeuvre. Earlier he adapted two other classic novels by the author — "The Last Tycoon" and "Tender is the Night." Both premiered at the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, where Levy is producing director.

Theater preview


"The Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald, adapted by Simon Levy, previews tonight through Tuesday, opens Wednesday and runs through Dec. 10, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Center; $10-$48 (206-443-2222 or www.seattlerep.org).

"I've always been a Fitzgerald nut," he states. "I believe he understood men in a very different way than most American writers. He was the un-Hemingway ... He knew there is a fragility in men, something broken that they are trying to mend. And most of the time, like Gatsby, they fail."

For Levy, "Gatsby" is primarily about the "pursuit of an illusion." The title character has moved to an imposing mansion on Long Island to woo Daisy — the rich, beautiful, now-married young woman he romanced earlier but could not win until he made his fortune.

Gatsby's quest is closely observed by the book's narrator, Nick Carraway, an interloper in Daisy's glittering, indolent and morally lax circle.

Nick's perceptions of events and other characters compose a good deal of the book, making it a hard tale to dramatize. But there have been numerous tries.

The first was a 1926 silent movie of "Gatsby." In 1974 came a glamorous but sluggish film of the book, with Robert Redford as Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy. And in 1999 a "Great Gatsby" opera composed by John Harbison was introduced, to mixed reception.

The reviews were also mixed for Levy's "Gatsby" when it inaugurated the Guthrie's new $125 million playhouse recently. But the show was a box-office hit in Minneapolis, partly due to Fitzgerald's ties to the Twin Cities. (He was born, and partly raised, in St. Paul, Minn.)

Levy has retooled the script and cut "maybe 15 minutes, but an important 15 minutes" for the Seattle Rep run. Nick's narrative voice weaves in and out, and Levy added some of his own dialogue "when necessary" to Fitzgerald's prose. He also "amped up" the "unveiling" of Gatsby's character, to make it more dramatic.

Visual elements by Seattle-based set designer Thomas Lynch and others on the top-notch design team are integral to Levy's vision. "We're trying to create an impressionistic, fairy-tale world," he explains. "You have to capture the opulence of these people, but also the ugliness of the local ash heaps too."

There was a bit of offstage drama during the run in Minneapolis, when the experimental troupe Elevator Repair Service mounted its own idiosyncratic, six-hour version of "Gatsby" (titled "Gatz") in the same city after the Guthrie's "Gatsby" closed. Though "Gatz" had won raves in Europe, the Fitzgerald estate (which holds the legal rights to the novel) barred the group from performing their version this season in cities where Levy's "The Great Gatsby" is going, or might go — including Seattle and New York.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com