The Great Gatsby

ABOUT

The Cape Town Theatre and CDS presents the iconic tale of Jay Gatsby, as he grasps desperately at the failing illusions of The American Dream. The Great Gatsby will be the first major theatrical event at the newly reopened The Star Theatre at HCC (formerly the site of the beloved Fugard Theatre in the heart of Cape Town). The project arrives as a brash and bold celebration of live theatre after a season of lockdowns, closures and damage to the performing arts industry. The show features a stellar cast of 27 actors, singers, dancers and musicians, bringing to life the frantic pulse of the Jazz age - an age of prohibition, fuel shortages and the great flu (sound familiar?)

From the uniquely imaginative mind of director Neil Leachman comes the new theatrical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. This adaptation is a deconstructed, avant-garde staging of the classic tale, celebrating the themes of the much loved novel in a contemporary tempo. The Great Gatsby follows Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz, bootleg kings, and sky-rocketing stocks. Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby, and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy, and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan. It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles. 

This glittering staging is set to the rhythm of a filmic score provided by a live jazz band, with powerful vocalists supporting the story unfolding below. Experience the wonder of this tale as never seen before.

“ Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby