I bought flapper tix with my body on Broadway
Charleston Part I: The Competition
Allow me to channel my inner Sally O’Malley from Saturday Night Live! I am almost 50. And I won a solo Charleston contest a few weeks ago. … Fifty years old! Fifty years old.
A friend later asked, “Did you practice?”
No. Not at all. Unless you count decades of dance lessons and musical theater shows that make vintage dance steps as natural as swatting flies.
The event was the season’s first Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governors Island in NYC. I’ve attended this event for years. I’m sure I’ve competed before, with more politeness than abandonment. I don’t remember. Certainly, I’ve watched from the sides.
This year, when the host announced the prize — two free tickets to The Great Gatsby on Broadway — my brain sizzled. “I’m going to win,” I said.
“This is like an audition,” the host said as “Sweet Georgia Brown” started thumping. “Eyes up. Let me see your face.”
And that was that. I decided I wasn’t going to strain my muscles by trying to fit into a rectangular shape. Boring’s for the birds. So I just flapped my way into free dance floor sky. When the trombone slid, I became the trombone. Then I was a trumpet lick. Had I been a little girl, I would have thrown my dress up, caught in that magical ecstasy when the stupid rules don’t matter. When I glanced at my boyfriend — who was recording me on his phone — he looked happily shocked. He’s never really seen me dance. Was that a tear?
I hope you can enjoy this pic with me. I’d like to share the feeling to keep it circulating through the populace.
The host caught my eye. I knew the tickets were mine.
Charleston Part II: I Claim My Winnings
Last night, I claimed my prize tickets with my friend and Charleston accomplice.
“I bought these tickets with my body,” I told the woman at the box office. She laughed. Atta girl.
Here’s my assessment: I’m glad I saw the show now because I don’t know if it will remain on Broadway long.
Of course, I loved it, with caveats. How could I not have caveats, people? The Great Gatsby is a literary masterpiece about terrible people who commit a triple-murder-suicide. The author is none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald, a man who makes narcissism and addiction look jazzy rather than grotesque.
Trying this work as a musical is ambitious. So hats off to Kait Kerrigan, who wrote the book, Jason Howland for music, and Nathan Tysen for the poignant lyrics that included rhyming “shiny new thing” with “wedding ring” in Myrtle’s last song.
That song is called “One-Way Road,” and those of you who know the book know how that song ends.
Yes.
Imagine a very real car crash here.
It’s triggering, friends, especially in a musical. Up until that final splat of Gatsby’s car into Myrtle’s pregnant body, the ensemble had been combining hip-hop dance moves and pop vocals in ways that were sometimes effective.
I appreciate needing to be edgy. We’ve seen the flapper tropes so many times. But my friend and I remarked that we were being screamed at for two hours. Our nervous systems were exhausted. Our imaginations were never allowed to play among the moving digital imagery in the background.
I was disappointed with the chorus that rarely was more relevant than a great swing choir. I felt like they were being held back, dressed in gold Amazon-looking costumes that won the Tony but really didn’t provide anything new. A few times, I saw a crooked ankle, suggesting drunkenness and a sinister machine. I wanted more of that danger, without getting too Fosse-Pippin.
Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Instead, there was a lot of tableau and trite posing without going full flapper or full hip hop. The tap number in the second act — finally there was a tap number — showed off the superb artistry of four dancers called the Sugars: two males and two OUTSTANDING females. I was just so relieved to see some explosive energy here. Excellent actors too, they managed to move the story by being so slick and nouveau riche with some innovative lindy.
I loved Daisy’s final song about hoping her daughter will be a beautiful little fool. Oh, what a wonderful way to bring in the novel and semi-autobiographical thoughts of Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. I didn’t hate Daisy. I know her.
But I am concerned that live entertainment has just gotten so loud, both in volume and in overstimulation. Storytelling drowns in the heavy cinematic experience.
When George appears at the end to deal with Gatsby, I had the horrible realization that the edge of the stage was set up to look like a pool. Oh, no. Gatsby’s going to fall in there right in front of us. We had excellent seats. He did fall down in front of us. And the gun going off, when George took his own life, was dramatic in the wrong way. It was awful.
The best part were the actors. Noah J. Ricketts is a lovely, earnest Nick Carraway. Samantha Pauly was an earthy Jordan Baker with a whole wardrobe of cool pants. Jeremy Jordan was a nerdy and also manipulative Gatsby. Sometimes, he made me cringe with his delusions of freaking Daisy. He’s wretched too, Old Sport.
Oddly, I also liked John Zdrojeski as Tom Buchanan because he did such a good job playing a hideous character. He was very tall, imposing, and beautiful. I kept wondering how he would justify his actions in every scene; he knows he is at the top of the food chain, and so do we. I felt as if I were observing a predatory animal in a documentary. Had he ventured into #MeToo commentary, he would have been fashionable. However, his portrayal is smarter in being almost scientific.
The play’s writing brought out details I missed in the novel. (I did read over the novel online today, a treat since it entered the public domain in 2021.) For instance, Tom most likely broke a chambermaid’s arm in Santa Barbara before coming to East Egg. That detail is in the book and easily missed. The chambermaid and he were in a car crash together, an allusion to his abusive affair with Myrtle, whose nose he breaks in the first act. That’s why he and Daisy keep moving, to keep Tom’s indiscretions, and now hers, out of the papers. Tom hates women. Daisy hates her husband, but she also loves him and his money. She feeds on Tom’s high status, above all accountability.
In this version, I understood why Tom and Daisy were together. This type of couple is like Frank and Claire Underwood, or maybe the Sacklers. Without villainous mustaches, they’re chillingly human.
None of this makes me want to sing.