• Arguendo

    Arguendo

    May it please the Court, and for the sake of argument, the Elevator Repair Service has clear and unambiguous standing in the matter of the transformation of non-theatrical texts into performed drama, as evidenced by Exhibit A, Gatz, which brought every word of Fitzgerald’s Gatsby to the stage, and Exhibit B, The Select (The Sun…

  • The Great Gatsby

    The Great Gatsby

    I saw Baz Luhrmann’s THE GREAT GATSBY through 3D glasses, and I would not have seen it any other way. The whimsical unreality of it, the whole cinematic pop-up book of staggered planes and optically induced kinesthetic illusion, translates not only the novel’s style but its thematic essence. Gatsby is a novella of memory, of…

  • The Select

    The Select

    I have always had mixed feelings about the Hemingway ouvre, but The Sun Also Rises has the special virtue of being perfect. It is one of those novels – Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is another – that uses an anecdote involving a small number of characters to distill the essence of an historical moment. So I was…