Brisbane review: Villanova Entertains with Great Gatsby

By Lilian Harrington

Production: The Great Gatsby

Writer: Scott Fitzgerald .Adapted by: Simon Levy

Company: Villanova Players

Director: Vivien Broadbent.

Location: The Ron Hurley Theatre

28 Tallowood Street, Seven Hills Q. 4170

Limited Season: March 14-23 at 7: 30pm.Matinees Sat/Sun.2 pm

Bookings: info@villanovaplayers.com or Call: 0423 920832

Villanova Players has become known for its well-organised and interesting theatre programs. It is one of the longest running community theatre groups in S. E. Queensland and this year is no exception.

American writer Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby is one of the most popular works of our time, and it’s now adapted for both stage and screen.

 It focuses on an important era in post -war America, when there was a serious underworld element promoting the sales of bootleg liquor, and other under the table items for sale; people like the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, arrived on the New York scene with everything money could buy, but in his case, not the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan.  The less fortunate had to find ways to survive and were exploited by the rich.

The Great Gatsby focuses on the Jazz era, high society, celebrities who attended the decadent parties in Long Island that Jay Gatsby (Hayden Parsons) hosted, where all kinds of gangsters and starlets he hardly knew were invited. His purpose was to find and get back with his former girl-friend Daisy Buchanan ( Hannah Kennedy) who he had had to leave 5 years earlier, when he went into the army. His solace was to get others to share his great, empty mansion at his infamous parties as well as fill his life up with other business ventures.

This story is narrated by young writer, Nick Carraway (Lachlan Gregory Hugh), who arrives in Long Island for the summer. He narrates events to the audience. True to this rich, superficial, society, they don’t end well. Nick Carraway sums up the fatal events leading to Jay Gatsby’s demise and Daisy‘s utter selfishness in not taking responsibility for the fatal events that occurred. He shares the real truth about this society with the audience; He highlights the greedy and exploitive society that he has encountered in Long Island before he decides to return to the West.

Director Vivien Broadbent has put together a carefully coordinated production with a simple, but effective setting constructed by Jacqueline Kerr and team, which used overheads to set each scene.

Along with the costume design by Lia Sorrentino and Allison Clarke and others it focused on recreating images of the era. The Gatsby showed up problems that were evident in some domestic relationships. These social attitudes and beliefs that existed at the time were discussed by Nick Caraway when he explained about Daisy and Jordan, his girl -friend a golf player. The lighting and technical overheads helped give the production some depth and dimension and facilitate changes of scene, which worked well for the most part.

Hannah Kennedy created a well-choreographed ensemble of tap and period dancers, which complimented the action. A highlight was the innovative dance all in silver sequence, seen when the troupe formed part of Gatsby’s aeroplane.

While this performance lacked energy and pace in some scenes and missed technical cues by crew, confident performances were seen by: Lachlan Gregory Hugh (Nick Caraway), Jay Gatsby (Hayden Parsons), Daisy Buchanan (Hannah Kennedy), along with Josephine Stockdale (Myrtle Wilson) and Steven Eggington (George Wilson), plus understudy Jackson Paul, who read the role of Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s abusive husband.

Many will be familiar with Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which has been given its own special interpretation on stage by Villanova Players.