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'The Great Gatsby' Story and Characters | The BSB Podcast · The BSB Podcast

• 0:00
  spoiler warning.
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  If you have not seen The Great Gatsby on Broadway, if you have not seen clips on TikTok or Instagram, if you have not read the book or seen the movie with
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  Toby McGuire and Leonardo DiCaprio and you do not want spoilers.
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  This is not the podcast for you right now.
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  So save this, come back later.
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  We'll be here waiting.
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  That's the greatest thing about podcasts and YouTube.
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  As always, RJ, how you doing?
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  You know, I'm here.
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  You are here.
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  Congratulations.
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  You made it.
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  Half the battle.
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  wherever here is.
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  Well, if you were on a New York trip, here is death apparently, because we just saw lots of shows about death.
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  That seems to be the theme of the 2025 NYC trip of ours.
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  Correct.
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  I mean, I think that specifically this day that we saw the Gatsby, there was two shows back to back that were just about death.
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  Sunset Boulevard?
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  I think that was Sunset Boulevard Day.
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  So we're gonna start off as we always do, start off strong.
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  What is your connection with Great Gatsby?
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  Did you read this book?
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  Did you see the movie?
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  Have you seen any of the movies?
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  No.
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  And no.
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  All of the no.
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  So he went into this blind.
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  Completely blind.
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  Okay, okay.
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  They did not require this in school.
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  for me, this was a college book.
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  Like, I had to read this in college.
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  Um, so my high school, if you were in AP English, I think they read it.
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  Uh, I was not in AP English.
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  I was only in honors English.
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  So I did not read this.
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  but I remember people talking about it.
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  And then of course the movie came out.
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  I remember people talking about that because good old Leo.
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  Um, but I still like even through hearing people talk about it.
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  did not pursue any type of interest at all.
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  I that is fair.
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  It's an old, I mean, F.
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  Scott Fitzgerald, classic American literature author.
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  I actually read about him in a American English class.
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  Specifically, we were focusing on the American dream was the theme of the class.
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  And so this was one of those ones about pursuing the American dream and how the dream of what is America is not.
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  as great as people make it out to be.
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  Which is pretty apropos for today's society.
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  But yes, we had to read this.
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  It was like our first book into the class and my teacher was very into it.
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  So we like dissected this one.
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  So I was very familiar with the Great Gatsby before we went into the show.
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  What I was not prepared for was walking into that theater and basically seeing the pool right there in front of you.
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  Did you kind of recognize that it was a pool when we walked in?
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  yeah, for sure, for sure it was noticeably due to the, you know, ladders.
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  Um, but didn't mean anything to me aside from the fact that it was indeed a pool.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah.
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  because they don't really talk about the pool in the book.
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  My nephew's reading it right now in 10th grade.
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  And I was just like, does the book start off with a pool I couldn't remember?
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  And my mom remembered right away.
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  She was like, the Robert Redford film where he's like floating up in the pool.
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  And I was like, yeah, that's one of them, obviously.
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  And the book doesn't start that way.
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  So the fact that they have the pool front and center really kind of brings full circle of the story of Gatsby.
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  You know what, now that I'm thinking about it and it's kind of funny that we did this in Sunset Boulevard because in the movie Sunset Boulevard
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  He starts, the movie starts in the pool with him dead in the pool.
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  Really?
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  Yeah.
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  Which obviously we don't get that in the Broadway show, but I just put two and two together and yeah, it starts, which is probably why when we went and I saw the pool, I was
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  like, well, this is weird.
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  Cause we just saw.
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  Sunset.
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  That is crazy.
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  See, I've not seen Sense of Boulevard, so to know that.
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  But it's interesting that both of them speak to very specific, like quote unquote American dreams.
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  One being like the impact of Hollywood, one being the impact of riches and the world that it inhabits.
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  So like, it's interesting that there's those parallels between those movies.
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  What did you think of Gatsby's world?
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  the story is very much 1920s, in the middle of a depression most of the world.
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  And then you get into the world of the rich.
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  And it's vibrant.
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  the nice thing about the show is that there's the vibrancy of the rich world, but there's also the focus on what's happening to the working class people.
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  What did you like about this world?
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  I mean...
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  I don't know if like is the right.
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  Sure.
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  They're not likable.
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  like, mean, like in regards to the presentation itself, yeah, I thought it was very impressive.
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  But the story why it's like, it's a little bit eye roll for me, just because it's like, as we as you just said, like much of the world is or much of the nation, I don't can't speak
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  for the world, but much of the nation was suffering.
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  and struggling, which, I mean, I guess you could say that every generation, but specifically in that time in history.
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  then, so to be just like in this kind of fantasy world, it felt like, so far removed from the reality outside the gate that I was just kind of like.
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  And that's what it's supposed to be, right?
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  Like that is exactly what it is.
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  And people are, are going to Gatsby's parties kind of as an escape and because it's so bougie and extra and top of the top, but yeah, always in the back of my mind.
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  like, and meanwhile,
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  right?
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  mean, because, you know, while the world actually, depending on exactly when this, this story takes place, the great depression didn't really start until the end of the 1920s,
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  you know, 1929 specifically, but there's definitely the start of what becomes the great depression.
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  And we kind of get this through the eyes of the, the narrator, Nick, you know, who is
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  I would say he's more of like that working class, even though he doesn't really, he isn't really the working class, but he's related through his cousin into this, like he's thrown
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  into this world of richness, of indulgence, because of Daisy.
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  And so you get this really interesting perspective of
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  who he is in a world of the rich.
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  And so like in that way, he's relatable to us.
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  But this world is just exorbitant.
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  Like it's just like completely.
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  Like you said, everybody's coming to Gatsby's parties because they are.
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  Bigger than life.
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  And then we get people like Myrtle and her her husband, who are like scraping together to have a life.
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  And so there's this interesting dichotomy that's happening throughout the Great Gatsby that I think definitely pushes this.
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  I mean, that is the story.
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  Yeah, right.
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  Like the people who have the money make the money and then but are leaning heavily on the shoulders of those that don't.
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  And obviously like, yeah, Myrtle and her husband, who I am blinking on the character's name of.
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  He doesn't have a...
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  I mean, he's important, but he's not there, you know?
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  It like they get a cut obviously as we know of
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  the money, but you know that it's probably pinching pennies in regards to what's actually being made.
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  So it's just that level of.
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  I don't know, like deception almost?
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  Because yeah, those just the grandiose.
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  party after party, exuberance after one after the other, and then meanwhile these people are just trying to literally...
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  keep food on the table, keep a business.
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  Like when you talk about the American dream, yeah, you see both sides because so much of the American dream supposedly is built on like owning a business and being an
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  entrepreneur.
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  And then you have the flip side with Gatsby who, yeah, he's kind of doing the same thing, but also he has like.
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  all of this support from obviously shareholders and other sorts of folks.
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  depending on the lens of which we're looking, the American dream can look substantially different.
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  You know, something interesting you brought up there is deception, which, you know, in my English class, let's pull back on my degree there.
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  You learn that Nick is an unreliable narrator because of the way he's viewing things and specifically because of how he feels about Jay Gatsby.
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  But the fact of deception, because there's there's many layers of deception to the story between the rich and the poor.
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  in between who's telling the story and like who's the villain and who's who's to blame here for all these things.
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  And I think ultimately I left the show kind of feeling like no matter what story you're kind of listening to, everybody's kind of awful.
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  You know, like I think that's like kind of like the American dream of this story is is everybody is out for themselves and everybody is trying to get a leg up and nobody really.
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  Everybody wants to live this.
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  this extravagant life, nobody's willing to, like they're willing to step on the neck of somebody else to get there.
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  Kind of how that feels.
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  the narcissism still runs through through and through even to today's time, right?
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  Like we're looking out for number one.
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  And if we happen to help somebody else in as we're going along that way, great.
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  Um, and that's like a pretty pessimistic way of looking at life, but unfortunately can be can ring true.
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  That's why we have
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  such substantial
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  the discrepancies of, you know, low income to high earners is so great because of things like that.
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  So it's same like doesn't it's been happening since basically the beginning of time.
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  Right.
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  So
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  I think along those lines to something that this is interesting is that this show talks about and I don't remember this from the book.
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  I don't remember this specifically from the movie as well.
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  But there is an emphasis on old money and new money expressed specifically in the world of the rich.
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  In fact, we have one song that talks about I'm sure anybody who's been on TikTok recently knows the song because it's everywhere.
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  But it's interesting because it's almost like the
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  in that song and in the dynamics of The Great Gatsby, Old Money doesn't have as much to worry about.
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  Like, Old Money is like...
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  The class system within being rich, like the new money doesn't have to worry.
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  They can have fun.
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  They can go and do all these things.
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  They aren't building an empire.
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  They're just kind of like they are benefiting off of cheap ways to become rich.
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  At least that's kind of how it felt in the show.
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  And that's kind of what I was picking up on.
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  But there's this interesting like Jay's way of getting rich compared to Tom Buchanan's way of getting rich.
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  Yeah, and the, I mean the classism, right?
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  Like you will never reach the level at which I am because you are old versus new, right?
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  So even within that own, its own, what may be perceived, right, as rich versus poor.
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  It's a richer rich and a poorer rich.
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  And that can happen.
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  It's a sliding scale, right?
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  That's why we have, even now, what we consider middle class, upper middle, lower middle, lower class.
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  It's just all these terms for things that really kind of mean the same thing in the fact that we're trying to.
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  separate ourselves or separate different classes of people because somehow that that matters even when it really doesn't.
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  And even in the way that they approach their problems, because I'm thinking of like when you look at Tom, Tom seems to have come from money.
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  He seemed old money, like specifically he didn't like Gatsby because he was new money, but he thought he could buy his way through his problems.
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  He thought he could buy an apartment for Myrtle in the city.
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  He could buy her a tennis bracelet and everything was going to be okay.
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  And then you have Jay who threw parties that he didn't even come to, to bring people in.
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  to bring a community in, specifically to bring Daisy in is kind of the idea.
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  he, the new money almost seemed like a party and like a community.
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  like, we are all in this together where Tom was very much the, is mine is mine.
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  And nobody gets to kind of touch that.
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  Like a very, like an empire versus.
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  the opposite of a party, you know?
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  Yeah, I mean, it's almost like the business in the front party in the back.
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  Yeah, it just...
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  I think the familial pressures of wanting to continue, like you said, like an empire versus being completely untied to really anything or anyone and just saying, you know, I'm
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  going to do what I want because I can.
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  Sure, absolutely.
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  So with this story, the story is a very human centric piece.
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  Yes, there's great music.
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  There's great performances.
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  There's dazzling sets.
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  That's part two.
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  We're here to talk about the people.
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  Specifically, let's talk about the person we came to see the show for.
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  We got to see Jeremy Jordan in his final Gatsby performance.
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  Did you think it was going to be a absolute like.
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  The people there were like everybody was there for them, which I guess that's why that's why we were there.
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  We were there for Jeremy Jordan.
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  It felt like a concert almost the way that the audience responded to having Jeremy on stage and performing.
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  Did you like have you ever been to a like a final performance and ever had that feel?
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  Did you expect that?
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  No, I...
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  that was a first.
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  I can't say that I'm completely shocked because his following is so strong and he is just such a staple in the Broadway realm, but I didn't...
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  I don't think I expected it to be so much.
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  Like after...
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  I get like...
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  it is normal like the first time that person comes on stage.
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  them to get some type of ovation makes sense.
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  That happens on national tours too.
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  Basically, feel like any time he had a maybe like solo performance, it was just like waiting because the ovations were so long.
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  then, I mean, obviously he didn't do a curtain speech.
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  He just kind of accepted the very short and sweet directors.
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  speech, which I found interesting, but also appreciated because sometimes those things can just go on forever.
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  And maybe that's part of the reason too, which I didn't even think about because the ovations were so long.
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  Like I'm sure it added a substantial amount of time to the runtime of that show.
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  100%.
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  Like when he first come.
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  to everybody more.
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  Because specifically when he comes out on the stage, I think that he stood there for, it felt like at least five minutes.
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  He was standing there in the Jay Gatsby stance and you were like, we are never going to stop screaming.
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  It was like thunderous.
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  The whole auditorium, the whole theater was just in an uproar when he got on stage, which like you said, we've seen that before, but that felt different.
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  That felt huge.
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  It felt monumental.
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  I'm sure I had to feel good for him to feel that.
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  Yeah, it does make me curious like if that's just normal for him period like just that's what level he is like So even and maybe it was a little bit extra with it being his last
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  one But he's it's not like he's done with Broadway like he's going over the Kennedy's or the not Kennedy Lincoln Center Um to do a show so he's just moving on to the next thing um
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  But I am curious like if there was a comparison of what an average day with him in show looks like and then what a, you know, last performance feels like.
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  I'm sure.
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  mean, so the interesting thing about Jeremy Jordan for me is I didn't know who he was until Supergirl.
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  I did not.
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  So like the fact that like I did not know when he left Supergirl to go to Broadway, I was like, that's cool.
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  He's going from like television to Broadway.
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  That's really cool.
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  Not knowing that he had already been on Broadway.
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  And so like I slowly since this journey began, learned how about how big of a star he is on Broadway.
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  And so seeing that, I was just like, I was like, this is what like Kelly Clarkson gets when she walks on the stage.
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  This is like when you're Paramore walks on the stage and people are screaming.
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  And there was such a strong fan base that I'm sure that he gets that quite often from people who are there to see him because I think he's one of the big draws of this show.
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  Yeah, I agree.
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  He's just been doing it for so long and you kind of forget also because I think he hasn't really like
• 19:46
  aged a lot physically that you can tell like he's I mean I'm sure if you do a side-by-side comparison you could tell but generally of course with with a little theater magic and
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  hair and makeup it's just
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  same old Jeremy Jordan that was in Newsies decades ago.
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  So
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  sure.
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  Where he sings, sung Santa Fe.
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  I just recently found this out.
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  Yes.
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  He said, I mean, he basically sings that whole show, but Santa Fe is the, the title song.
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  So whose performance, like, what characters were you drawn to?
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  What performances were you drawn to?
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  Obviously, I understand that we were there for Jeremy Jordan.
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  But was there anybody else that did jump out to you as very catching for The Great Gatsby?
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  I loved, character wise, I Jordan, played by Samantha Polly.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I just love the songs that she sings.
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  I love the attitude.
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  She's just like a breath, a little bit of a breath of fresh air when we talk about that classism.
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  Like, even though she's a part of it, she's just a little bit outside of the bounds of what was expected of her.
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  And so I thought that was portrayed really well.
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  100%.
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  She was special.
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  She was special in the show.
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  She was the person that I almost saw myself rooting for.
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  And then in the end, she kind of the way she treats Nick, you almost become like, you're reminded again that there's sides to every person.
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  But like she was the one from the beginning.
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  I was like, you're fun, you're cool.
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  You're not buying into this like classist bullshit.
• 21:33
  Like there was something really like refreshing about her character, but I also loved her from six.
• 21:37
  Like, again, was I just being influenced by
• 21:40
  her performance from that, I don't know.
• 21:41
  like Jordan was probably one of my favorite characters.
• 21:45
  I do agree with you on that.
• 21:47
  Yeah, I mean, obviously they were all incredibly talented.
• 21:51
  John as Tom playing a great villain.
• 21:56
  Mm-hmm for sure like extraordinary
• 22:01
  it's like villain but not villain because once again everybody's a little bit villain he's just like the most obvious
• 22:10
  Very in your face.
• 22:12
  Yeah, yeah, he's like the gross, like I, the person that I wouldn't be able to find.
• 22:19
  Yeah, yeah, so.
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  I do have to give a shout out to Sarah Chase who played Myrtle who I did not think I was going to like, but Myrtle had this level of, she was like the poor version of Jordan.
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  She was like sassy and she had a personality and she had, she actually had like a backbone and a lot of people tried to push her around because of that.
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  And so also my applause to Sarah Chase who
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  when she began this role and then she went through a cancer diagnosis and left the role and came back and just like singing those songs and giving and pouring her heart out.
• 22:57
  Like there was such a rawness and realness to Myrtle that I think that is a testament to Sarah Chase's acting abilities and the journey she's gone through in this role and how
• 23:09
  that had to influence it at some time somehow.
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  So I did love Myrtle as well.
• 23:14
  And of course, where would we be without our ensemble?
• 23:16
  I mean, there was a lot of people on the stage, dancing, moving, big flashy numbers.
• 23:24
  I mean, it was, there was a lot of excitement that the cast brought to the story that I think, I think The Great Gatsby owes a lot to the cast.
• 23:35
  Yeah, I mean you have those massive numbers.
• 23:38
  You can't do a number like new money without a ton of folks.
• 23:44
  And it does give you a few of those like old timey.
• 23:48
  like big band musical dance breaks.
• 23:55
  So it was on top of just the random, you know, all of the extra roles that you don't quite notice, but they are substantial in regards to taking things on, pulling them off.
• 24:13
  I'm thinking of the scene where
• 24:17
  Gatsby is prepping for the lunch at the cottage and they're just running on and off with five different things Can't do it without them
• 24:29
  Absolutely.
• 24:30
  And so that concludes our story discussion and character discussion of The Great Gatsby.
• 24:37
  We'll be on look off for part two, where we'll be discussing some of the technical aspects of the show, as well as the music and kind of given our final verdict on is The Great
• 24:46
  Gatsby a good show to see on your trip to NYC.
• 24:53
  And so thank you again for listening and joining us here in our box seats till the next curtain call.