Der große Gatsby

Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Adapted for the stage by Rebekka Kricheldorf

Clinking champagne glasses, glittering dresses, wild dancing—until dawn slowly breaks and the music fades away. The rising sun reveals a view of the New York skyline of the “Roaring Twenties.” The young millionaire Jay Gatsby stands alone on the shore, hoping to see his lost love, Daisy Buchanan, again someday. While he was fighting as a soldier in the war, Daisy had chosen and married another man from a wealthy Midwestern family—a man who, however, is anything but a noble character: The former football player Tom Buchanan lacks any sense of morality, but is instead driven by ruthlessness and arrogance. He cheats on Daisy and uses violence to assert his power whenever it suits him. Jay Gatsby is aware of this dangerous relationship and suspects that only if he becomes rich enough might he be able to win Daisy back and set her free. So he tries to increase his fortune through shady deals and to capture her attention with extravagant parties. But the world of the 1920s is full of glitz and glamour only on the surface—beneath it lie deep loneliness and dark secrets.

Exactly one hundred years ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald published this masterful novel. He has the story told from the first-person perspective of Nick Carraway, a penniless writer and Gatsby’s neighbor
—a brilliant device, as it allows Fitzgerald himself, as the narrator, to immerse himself in his novel and weave in his own experiences of lavish parties on Long Island. Tragically, Fitzgerald was convinced until his death that no one would remember him—unaware that this novel would stand the test of time and still cast a mysterious spell over people a hundred years later.

Sat, Sept. 12, 1926 – Premiere

Main Stage