The Broadway production of The Great Gatsby is a dazzling and heartfelt reimagining of Fitzgerald’s classic, blending roaring-twenties glamour with timeless emotional truth. I saw the show on October 19, 2025, and it was a night of remarkable performances, lush design, and surprising intimacy. While audiences eagerly anticipate Jeremy Jordan’s return to the role of Jay Gatsby, Ryan McCartan more than held his own, delivering a performance that was magnetic, complex, and full of aching humanity.
McCartan’s Gatsby radiated both charm and desperation. His voice soared through the score with a rich, emotional clarity that captured the yearning beneath the character’s polish. He gave Gatsby not only grandeur, but also vulnerability – the kind that makes his downfall inevitable and deeply moving. Opposite him, Aisha Jackson portrayed Daisy Buchanan with a perfect blend of poise, fragility, and moral uncertainty. Her Daisy shimmered like champagne in the light, beautiful to behold yet impossible to hold onto. Michael Maliakel, as Nick Carraway, anchored the story with quiet honesty, balancing the glitter of Gatsby’s world against the quiet melancholy of a man watching it crumble.
The production itself was breathtaking. The set design pulsed with Art Deco elegance, filled with golden light and the rhythm of jazz, while still allowing moments of stillness to pierce through the glamour. Costumes sparkled with 1920s extravagance, yet never distracted from the human core of the story. Every visual choice – from the warm glow of Gatsby’s mansion to the shadowed gray of the valley of ashes – reflected the contrast between wealth and emptiness, illusion and truth.
Musically, the show pulsed with energy and emotion. The ensemble delivered intricate choreography that felt both period-authentic and modern, while the orchestrations shimmered with lush harmonies and bursts of raw feeling. It is rare for a production of such scale to maintain intimacy, but this one did, keeping the focus on longing, loss, and the fragile hope that drives Gatsby’s dream.
More than a story about love or status, this Gatsby is about the cost of reaching for something that was never real to begin with. McCartan’s performance captured that tragedy beautifully, making his interpretation distinct yet entirely worthy of comparison to Jordan’s celebrated portrayal.
This production of The Great Gatsby is a triumph of spectacle and soul. It is visually stunning, musically rich, and emotionally resonant. Beneath the glittering surface lies something rare and powerful – a reminder that even the brightest lights can cast the darkest shadows.
Brian Brijbag 