FRANKLIN, Pa. — The Barrow-Civic Theatre opens its main stage season with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless tale, The Great Gatsby.
Although set in the Jazz Age of the Roaring Twenties, many of the themes touched on in this classic story are hauntingly familiar. It’s a time of unprecedented materialism and excess in America where the rich become richer and the poor struggle just to get by. A time where fame and celebrity are prized over honesty and hard work, where sincerity gives way to superficiality.
It’s a fictional tale that asks a very real question: just how far we are willing to go to pursue our version of the American dream?
Synopsis of The Great Gatsby
In this stage adaptation by Simon Levy, the story unfolds from the memories of our narrator, Nick Carraway (Nicholas Hess). Looking to jumpstart his career, Nick heads east to reconnect with his cousin Daisy and her wealthy husband, Tom Buchanan. The enchanting Daisy (Hannah McCarthy) and charismatic Tom (Rob Bullington) invite Nick into their elite and glamourous world that on the surface appears picture-perfect, but is really in turmoil from Tom’s extra-marital affairs. Daisy introduces Nick to her childhood friend Jordan Baker (Brooke Lawrie), a professional golfer of questionable integrity, who immediately sets her sites on romancing Nick. Nick’s neighbor is the mysterious and intriguing Jay Gatsby (Ben Bodamer), a man of exceptional wealth and new-found celebrity who throws lavish parties in the hopes of reconnecting with his former love, Daisy, whom he hopes to win back from Tom. As the play enfolds, Daisy must decide whether to remain with her philandering husband and the wealth and stability he can provide, or start a new life with Gatsby. That new life, although alluring, is clouded by the mysteries of Gatsby’s past. A past made all the more suspect by his association with nefarious characters like Meyer Wolfsheim (Kevin Fox), a kingpin in the world of organized crime.