A man enters his office in the morning, finds his computer on the fritz and, after a few attempts to turn it on and off again, comes across a copy of F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. So he starts to read and when his colleagues enter they find themselves taking on the characters, and soon the novel unfolds around us, word by word. The New York theatre company Elevator Repair Service has produced a work that is not quite adaptation – given it doesn’t really adapt the novel at all – but that is utterly transfixing nonetheless.
Following a keen interest in non-dramatic texts, the company wanted to see what would happen when a powerful literary work was read and performed in its entirety. The result is both strange and strangely familiar. It feels sometimes like listening to the greatest audio book ever read, or attending a live recording of a particularly effective radio play. Eventually it’s as if the audience has gathered at the foot of their favourite primary school teacher while they read us their favourite book. It’s eight and a half hours of completely attentive, fully immersive joy.
