✭✭✭✩✩

music by Jason Howland, lyrics Nathan Tysen & book by Kait Kerrigan, directed by Marc Bruni

David & Hannah Mirvish, CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria St, Toronto, August 4–23, 2026

Tom: “It’s not about wealth. / It’s blood. It’s class”

Watching The Great Gatsby at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, one might wonder just how big the venue’s backstage storage is. Surely, enough to contain two full-size cars (one electric blue, the other bright yellow), a gas station, oversized floor lamps, backdrops, tables, and several dozen other props and furnishings devised by scenic designer Paul Tate dePoo III.

It’s pure excess. It’s ostentatious opulence. And, after all, it’s the Roaring Twenties.

At his mansion in the fictional town of West Egg, on Long Island, the mysterious Jay Gatsby (Jake David Smith) throws lavish parties in the hope that his first love, Daisy (Senzel Ahmady), will one day walk through the door. Before the First World War, Gatsby’s lack of money and social standing had made a future with her seem impossible. Daisy instead married the old-money Tom Buchanan (Will Branner).

But you probably know all this already. Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel is a staple of the North American school curriculum, while Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire was a box-office hit. The Great Gatsbyis an instantly recognizable title, one that conjures the glamour and decadence of the Jazz Age.

Perhaps for that reason, opening night seemed to extend the spectacle beyond the stage. The room was abuzz: plenty of audience members had donned fedoras, cloche hats, flapper dresses, and feathered headbands for the occasion. Countless selfies were taken during intermission. The promise, it seems, is that we too might become guests at one of Gatsby’s parties. And that promise is kept — far too often at the expense of the social critique so central to Fitzgerald’s novel.

In “New Money”, arguably the show’s most memorable number, an extravagantly dressed ensemble pours through Gatsby’s gates. They sweep from one side of the stage to the other like a flock of birds, flitting about in Linda Cho’s sublime, haute-couture-inspired costumes, drinking and gambling (a roulette table has meanwhile rolled onstage), and surrendering themselves to Jason Howland’s brassy score.

Dominique Kelley packs the scene with dazzling choreography, full of grands battements and hints of the Charleston, though its vocabulary skews decidedly towards modern jazz. It hardly ever misses a musical accent. At the same time, Marc Bruni’s direction unleashes one special effect after another: ceaseless scene changes, champagne towers and, finally, fireworks. It all feels bubbly. Quite literally: at the end of the number, soap bubbles drift above the performers, almost paling by comparison, unable to compete with the grandiosity the production has already put on display.

For much of the rest of the show, Kait Kerrigan’s book and Nathan Tysen’s lyrics frame Fitzgerald’s story primarily as a romance. The Prohibition becomes the background set for a circle of wealthy Americans absorbed in their own lives and aspirations.

Smith makes for an inappropriately goofy Gatsby, frequently comic and somewhat endearing. He displays a knockabout humour — as when he hides among the flowerbeds, embarrassed at the prospect of seeing Daisy again after so many years. Smith plays him with enchanted lightness: in the first-act song “For Her”, his crystalline voice slips into a delicate falsetto so soft and airy that it almost turns saccharine, fitting for a character whose sweetness is inseparable from delusion.

But the production’s true protagonist is narrator Nick Carraway, whom Joshua Grosso invests with hypnotic charisma. He colours almost any line with distrust, carrying much of the jaded gaze that permeates Fitzgerald’s novel. The musical also retains Nick’s relationship with Jordan Baker (Leanne Robinson), largely absent from Luhrmann’s film. Robinson gives the golfer a cool self-possession and formidable stage presence. Her smirk and slithering movements suggest a woman accustomed to moving through the world on her own terms, imbuing Jordan with a feminist aura.

As the musical progresses, especially in the second act, the stage becomes a showcase for secondary characters’ perspectives. The act-opening number sees Gatsby’s business associate Meter Wolfsheim (Edward Staudenmayer) celebrate criminality and moral flexibility. In “One-Way Road”. Tom’s mistress, Myrtle Wlison (Lila Coogan), wrestles with the choice between love and money. In “God Sees Everything”, her husband, George (Justin Scott Brown), transforms his grief into a desperate conviction in divine justice. Everyone, it seems, gets a moment to make their case, largely setting aside Fitzgerald’s broader critique of the American Dream.

Sometimes that social commentary briefly resurfaces. Gatsby may embody the capitalist promise of self-made success. He has risen from poverty to immense wealth and now presides over soirées of grotesque excess. Yet to the old-money Tom, he remains merely a nouveau riche, someone whose fortune cannot compensate for the absence of pedigree. In the second-act reprise of “Made to Last”, Tom puts it bluntly: “It’s not about wealth. / It’s blood. It’s class”. Branner opportunely flicks out the last word in a whispered puff of air.

Toward the end, social critique flits in once more. Nick delivers a blistering accusation against Daisy, condemning her for retreating into her money, well-protected by wealth from the destruction she leaves behind. What follows, however, is “Beautiful Little Fool”, a lengthy song in which Daisy asserts how much she wishes she could be naïve enough not to recognize the limits placed on her choices.

When she finishes, Nick, who has spent much of the number with his back to us, turns toward the audience and rolls his eyes. I couldn’t agree more.

Alessandro Stracuzzi

Photos: Ensemble of The Great Gatsby; Jake David Smith as Jay Gatsby; Joshua Grosso as Nick Caraway, Lila Coogan as Myrtle Wilson and Will Branner as Tom Buchanan; Senzei Ahmadi as Daisy Buchanan. © 2026 Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

For tickets visit: www.mirvish.com.