The Unadapted Theatrical Adaptation

by Jason Zinoman

Why are stage adaptations of great novels almost always so disappointing? The problem, according to one popular theory, is that in shrinking the text down to size, erasing scenes and conflating characters, versions of “Jane Eyre” or (God help us) “The Scarlet Pimpernel” sacrifice some of the classic book’s essential virtues: the language, the rhythm of the sentences, the distinctive poetry of the author. This year, John Collins, the cerebral leader of the experimental New York theater company Elevator Repair Service, offered a radical solution: adapt without adapting.

Collins mounted a production of “The Great Gatsby” without cutting a single word. “Gatz,” which refers to Jay Gatsby’s original name, is the most faithful version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book ever produced. The more-than-six-hour-long drama begins silently in a dismal contemporary office in which white-collar employees go through the motions of their seemingly ordinary days. But when one character has trouble with his computer, he picks up a well-worn paperback copy of “Gatsby” and starts to read aloud. Before long, this office drone evolves rather seamlessly into Nick Carraway, the narrator of the book, and his fellow employees morph into Jazz Age denizens of high society New York, re-enacting the book’s famously flamboyant parties while interjecting lines of dialogue.

Despite the low-tech production and lack of period details, the show does not seem like a stunt, although it is at least partly inspired by the anticomedian Andy Kaufman’s stand-up routine in which he read “Gatsby” until everyone left. What emerges, in fact, is a rather earnest love letter to the book that also makes a convincing argument for the dramatic power of the written word. Over the past year, “Gatz” toured the United States and Europe to glowing reviews. Next up for Collins is an even more daunting challenge: his production of “The Sound and the Fury” opens at the New York Theater Workshop in the spring.