Comments on: “Gatz” at the Public: A Great Gatsby or Just an Elitist One?

By: Robin Dann

Robin Dann — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:50:00 +0000

(Continued from above).
I must point out I’m talking about the 2012 run, with a different cast, and higher prices. Its’s not that the actors and staff don’t deserve to be paid. Of course they do. It’s that I feel the production itself is not worth the money I spent. (That is why I often prefer cinema to stage. I don’t feel bad for the actors when a movie doesn’t cut it. They’re not actually up there night after night in the flesh pouring their heart out into something that doesn’t fall together right. They’ve already been paid and moved on, and the movie is already an object with a life its own. Not so with a play. I feel for the actors who are pouring their vitality into the the play for the audience, in a vehicle they can’t alter much).

By: Robin Dann

Robin Dann — Sun, 13 May 2012 05:22:03 +0000

I’m an art snob, I could afford the ticket price, I love the novel, I’ve read it 5 times. Yet I was shocked to find this a very poor play. It worked for me only until the end of the 1st act. I felt that Gatsby was miscast as creepy and Tom as cartoonish, for whatever reason, laughs perhaps, and that that was a mistake. The most important scene in the book is when Daisy says to Gatsby “You always looks so cool” and Tom suddenly realizes they are having an affair. The moment on the stage has no tension (for me) and has to be explained. From then on the play just felt awkward to me. I fell asleep twice during the third act, and I have chronic severe insomnia. (Maybe I should be listening to books on tape). I have sat through five-hour operas, even a six-hour opera (War and Peace) and an eight-hour film (the same) without being bored. I just thought Gatz didn’t work and I wish I had saved the money or spent it on an opera at the Metropolitan. I can’t believe this is getting rave reviews. Is it from people too lazy to read the book? I just don’t get it. It’s like the emperor’s clothes…If the production were as good as the hype, I think it’s worth the ticket price, although I paid for my friend because she can’t afford it, and most people can’t. We’re practically in a depression! By the way, your essay ends just as it’s getting interesting. I wanted to read more of what you have to say!

By: John

John — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:28:39 +0000

What Aaron says is such an important and necessary part of this interesting conversation.

If you are satisfied with the current system for publicly funding the arts AND you expect your ticket price to be comfortably low, then you must also expect your theater to be produced and performed by the destitute.

And for what it’s worth, GATZ, though completely sold out, is not making The Public any money.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:06:08 +0000

I would love for you and your students to see Gatz. I’m in it, so I have a vested interest. There are rush tickets available before the show, and, for future reference the Public has cheaper student tickets available for everything they do before the run starts (though those were sold out quickly).

But it’s important to acknowledge what Rachel points out in her comment above, and perhaps to elaborate on it. That $140 ticket price, while high, is due to the fact that there is barely any public funding for the arts in the US, when compared to other first world countries. There is actually barely any PUBLIC SECTOR in the US, as compared to other first world countries.

So that admittedly ticket price, while admittedly inaccessible ironically reflects the real cost of producing a piece like Gatz. Those dollars pay the salaries of actors, designers, stage hands, maintenance people, administrators, and others. Most of the people working on the show do not have advanced degrees, many are union members, most are working or middle-class.

Perhaps a blog post on the inequities of the current marginal tax rates and how it keeps people like you from seeing good theater would be more provocative than yet another finger-pointing at an institution like The Public, which offers weeks of highly-produced theater for free each year to anyone in NY via Shakespeare in the Park, or a company like ERS, who struggles to make ends meet each month just as you and your students do.

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By: Wallard

Wallard — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 21:44:34 +0000

For those taking issue with the ticket price of Gatz, be advised that the Public has a standing Rush ticket policy. Given the fact that there are weekday shows (Wednesday and Friday starting at 3pm), it would seem that students and lecturers alike should be able to find a seat at a reasonable price.

By: rachel

rachel — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:15:02 +0000

Sure. What’s frustrating about this post though, at the risk of reducing its (valid!) points to a hand-wringing discussion about arts funding in America is…well, that it doesn’t acknowledge the gross lack of public funding for this kind of project. There’s uncomfortable irony in the fact that Gatsby (and Gatz) is ABOUT race, class, and pedigree and yet is totally inaccessible to a huge portion of the city, that’s true. But it’s an irony that exists in (almost) all large-scale-but-socially-aware theater. I have trouble finding Gatz particularly egregious (and, for what it’s worth, the price of the ticket broken down into dollars/hr makes the show cheaper than most of what’s off broadway).