Jay Gatsby is throwing a party – and you’re invited

The Great Gatsby
Wonderland Bar, Kings Cross
February 17
Until June 16
★★★½

You are invited to a party at Jay Gatsby’s house. There will be champagne and cocktails, glamour and heartbreak. What’s not to love?

Whether you’re in post-Spanish flu New York or post-Covid Sydney, Viral Venture’s immersive new production of The Great Gatsby feels like a decadent feast. Set within the labyrinthine corridors of what was once the Wonderland Bar on Bayswater Road, an audience of about 40 cosies up with a cast of 11 to relive F Scott Fitzgerald’s memorable Long Island summer.

The cast of eleven relives Gatsby’s eventful summer.Credit:Aaron Lyon

As immersive theatre goes, the story-telling is straightforward. After an evocative prelude our narrator, Nick (Ryan Hodson), takes us upstairs to meet cousin Daisy (Jessica Redmayne) and her rich and dissolute husband Tom (Joshua Ralph McElroy). We follow Tom to a New York apartment where he spends time with his lover Myrtle (Alicia Rose Quinn). Then we traipse back downstairs for the first of several parties chez Gatsby. From there, the scene is set for things to get complicated.

The venue itself plays a huge role. Designer Brendan de la Hoy has done a fine job dressing up the heritage three-storey terrace using a mixture of big swathes of material and vintage clutter to create enchanting, complicated spaces. Meanwhile, director Beth Daly creates action that works from nearly every angle.

Like Nick Carroway, we stand self-consciously next to the sofa where lovers are re-uniting, and giggle awkwardly at the crescendo of thumps and groans coming from behind the door of Nick and Myrtle’s bedroom. We’re gracefully shepherded through plot and house by the actors, all well-equipped with in-character small talk to smooth over a couple of clunky moments.

And then there are the parties, two extended pauses in action, where audience and cast get to have a drink, take photos – so Instagrammable! – and enjoy songs, jokes, tap dancing and even a burlesque striptease. It’s a thoroughly entertaining experience. But is it theatre?

Actually, yes. While the party pieces steal much of the show, there’s genuinely affecting drama going on in the background. The cast inhabit their world with conviction, and the climactic scene, up three flights of stairs, where Tom, Daisy and Gatsby finally tease apart their feelings, lands a heavy emotional punch, every character visibly changed. All in all, it’s a wonderful party. While it lasts.

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