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By Keith Gandal

Want a quick, but apparently reliable measure of how elitist you are?  Go see the 7-hour production of Gatz, in which all 47,000 words of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are, in the course of the play, enunciated on stage.  (If you dare and can afford to.)  If you love every minute of it and find time flying by, you’re probably, well, an arts snob; if you find your reaction mixed, your mind drifting in and out, and your body just plain giving out, well, you’re likely more of a populist.

Consider the following small, statistically meaningless, but provocative sample of reviews you instantly encounter on the web: the New York Times, Bloomberg, and Theatremania all give the play rave reviews, while the New York Post and the New York Daily News both give it 2½ stars (out of 4 and 5 respectively).  Ben Brantley of the New York Times describes the play as “work of singular imagination and intelligence.” Jeremy Gerard of Bloomberg calls it “remarkable,” “as powerful a piece of stagecraft as you may ever see.”  David Finkle of Theatremania finds the play “mesmerizing” and declares, “the lengthy production goes by in what seems like a blink of an eye.”  Meanwhile, Elisabeth Vincentelli of the New York Post gives it a mixed review, asserting that the director “has come up with an inspired concept” and that Gatz is “great, but [it] also grates.” “There are the deadly boring stretches. Very long ones.”  She concludes: “It’s as maddeningly tedious as it is brilliant. By the end, my mind was as numb as my butt.”  And Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News recommends the play, but also calls it a “fanny-numbing readathon.”

In other words, this small sample of reviews breaks down across class lines.  Higher-brow papers or websites are raving, and the lower-brow papers have mixed feelings, including uncomfortable feelings in their behinds.

But is this breakdown really surprising?  A 7-hour production at a cost of $140 seems to demand of its audience members that they have a lot of time and money to spare.  This is at the Public by the way, which was presumably once more public than it is now.  In fact, one thing the play Gatz does quite effectively is to restore Fitzgerald’s now very accessible novel to the inaccessibility, along class lines, that it would have had back in the 1920s.

I want to make clear that I haven’t seen the play and, thus, that my perceptions of its length, its cost, and its reviews are not colored by my having sat through it.  I’m actually quite curious to see it – I’m teaching the novel this term at City College, and I’ve written a recent book that devotes the longest chapter to Fitzgerald’s novel.  Well-meaning colleagues and friends have even suggested I take my class to see the play, given that some reviewers are calling it a major theatrical event, but with regular tickets starting at $140, who c

By Redford & Nikita

Translated by Jen Quigley, Sales Associate, and Betsy DeJesu, Publicity Manager

Welcome to round two. Last week you met Redford and Nikita. Two brave souls attempting to bridge the gap between dogs and cats. As our two volunteers continue to explore their common love of literature, we are quickly learning that the written word does more than just spark conversation for your book club.

Redford: Nikita!!!! Nikita, Nikita. (Redford lies down and licks his paws). Thanks for agreeing to meet with me again. Last time I ate your catnip so…. (Redford knocks over his food bowl…but it is empty…sigh).

Nikita: Hello, Redford. Nice to…see you again. I was told that I should say that I’m excited to be here and to discuss all things literary. So there, I said it. Are you…listening to me?

Redford: Wait, what? Squirrel! (Panting)

Nikita: That sounds about right.

Redford: Okay, sorry I’m ready now. Let’s start off with the question on everyone’s mind. Number one book that tickles your whiskers.

Nikita: Just one? Well, for the sake of this interview, I suppose I could choose just one…I’ll say the most recent book to make my whiskers shake was The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. It’s the story of an elderly lady, who served as a maid to an aristocratic family in England in the years before, during, and after World War I. She was the same age as the family’s two youngest daughters, and she kept some of their darkest secrets, including the truth about what really happened the night the man both sisters loved killed himself. The book vividly recreates the whole flapper, high society generation that took over post-World War I. And there is a mystery to boot. If there had been a cat in the book, then it would have been perfect.

Redford: Coolness! Now let’s talk character. Right now, you and I are living the dream. Taking naps, chasing squirrels, pawing at things…Tell me Miss Nikita, if you had to do it all over again which literary character would you choose to live as? Person, cat, dog, jellyfish…be honest.

Nikita: Jordan from The Great Gatsby. But with less cheating at golf.

Redford: When did you first discover your love of books?

Nikita: From a very young age. When I wasn’t chasing feathers on the end of a string or trying to hide in closets, I always had a book in my paws. Reading is fundamental, people!

Redford: Author you’d like to share a yarn ball with?

Nikita: I’ll stick with the flapper theme and say F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. They knew how to have a good time.

Redford: How do you feel about…Squirrel! Did you see it? Right there…he just…(Panting). How do you feel about those books with no pages? I think my person call them eReaders?

Nikita: They would be easier for me, I suppose, since I don’t have thumbs, and it’s hard to flip through pages without them. But I do love to curl up and take a nap on a good book. Nothing beats sleeping on warm paper.

Redford: Cool, cool. I still want to be an astronaut when I grow up…

Nikita: Of course you do.

Redford: Word of day?

Nikita: Felis cattus.

Redford: Thanks Nikita. I’d like to think that over the past two weeks you and I have brought closure to the mindless battle between cats and pups…well at least when it comes to paper…Pl