Theater Review: The Great Gatsby at Theatre in the Round Players

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was the first production of the 2026-27 season for Theatre in the Round Players. Located in Minneapolis, TRP has been around since 1953. This production of The Great Gatsby was adapted for the stage by Simon Levy. The adaptation was written for the Guthrie Theater in 2006, to celebrate the opening of their new building in downtown Minneapolis, along the Mississippi River. I saw that 2006 production of Gatsby at the Guthrie, and I wasn't that impressed with it. I can't say I remember a lot about it, but I remember the spectacle of it—they had a full-size car on stage! Impressive, but it felt strangely empty. 

One of the challenges of adapting The Great Gatsby to a different medium is how do you keep it from just being lots and lots of Nick Carraway talking? Obviously, the entire novel is told through Nick's voice, and from Nick's perspective. We do get moments that are outside of Nick's perspective, but those moments are all things that other people tell him: when Jordan tells him about Daisy and Gatsby's courtship, and when Gatsby tells Nick about his own past. I thought this adaptation at Theatre in the Round did a good job of not being overly reliant on Nick's narration. 

I really appreciated the decision by the costume designer to make Gatsby's pink suit a vibrant, bright shade of pink. In the movie versions with Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio, Gatsby's pink suit is a shade of light pink—they both look great, of course, but I appreciated the bright, almost salmon color, which made Gatsby stand out even more while he was wearing it on stage.

The performances were all excellent. John Blocher brought out Tom Buchanan's vapid boorishness. Kendra Alaura's portrayal of Jordan Baker accentuated her vibrancy, which can sometimes get lost in adaptations. Gavin Webb was excellent as Nick Carraway, hitting all the right notes as Nick is sometimes naive, and at other times sharp and insightful. Jake Leif brought Jay Gatsby to life wonderfully, adding the right notes of mystery and intrigue.

For me, the highlight of the show was Nina Broberg's excellent performance as Daisy Buchanan. Broberg gave Daisy an attractive vitality—her Daisy felt like a real, three-dimensional person. Daisy is a very hard role to play. The more I re-read The Great Gatsby, the more I puzzle over Daisy. It's easy to make Daisy a shallow villain. Mia Farrow captured Daisy's flighty shallowness in the 1974 movie, but she didn't capture Daisy's allure. Daisy needs to have a charm and an allure, because the audience needs to figure out what is driving Gatsby to go to such lengths to pursue her. Something that strikes me the more I read Gatsby is how Daisy hardly ever says what she means. Perhaps because her marriage to Tom is so awful, she has learned how to hide her true feelings through concealed or coded language. 

There’s always something beneath the surface of what Daisy is saying. For example, when she says to Gatsby, “You always look so cool,” Nick narrates “She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw.” (p.125) Daisy's true meaning isn't reflected in the language that she uses. She's also having to use coded language because she can't outright say "I love you" in front of Tom. I've always been puzzled over Daisy's crying over Gatsby's shirts. I finally asked my friends Katharine and Nicole one day "Why is Daisy crying about Gatsby's shirts? Is she really that shallow that she's crying over these material things, or is there something more going on here?" Katharine adapted a graphic novel of The Great Gatsby, and Nicole is a novelist and a teacher who has taught Gatsby for years, so I figured they would have some insight. And they did. They both said that Daisy is really crying about the last five years, and her feelings for Gatsby. Her tears over the shirts finally made sense to me. 

The scenes between Daisy and Gatsby after they reunited had real passion and heat. When they're dancing at Gatsby's party, Daisy and Gatsby get as close as they can without kissing, and you can feel their desire to escape from polite society and be alone. 

Theatre in the Round's production of The Great Gatsby was excellent, and it came closer to the heart of Fitzgerald's classic novel than the recent Broadway musical.