author: Steven Kirkpatrick

Based on the iconic Jazz Age novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby rolls glitteringly into the National Theater from May 12^th-24th. This 2023 musical adaption features music and lyrics by Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen and a book by Kait Kerrigan. It opened on Broadway in 2024, then had its European premiere in 2025, followed by this North American tour in 2026.  Should you attend? It depends upon what you expect.

If you are hoping for a dose of Roaring 20s glamor and jazz, you’ll be delighted visually, but perhaps a tad disappointed with the score, which favors Broadway-pop ballads over jazz.  (Yet there’s a second act party number, “La Dee Dah With You”, which likely offers what you’re looking for. And oh, the visuals! This show delivers glitz and glamour.)

If you’re hoping for a tragic love story between beautiful rich people, then Jake David Smith as nouveau-rich Jay Gatsby, and Senzel Ahmady as old-money rich Daisy Buchanan, are certainly beautiful, as well as talented performers.

But if you’re going for an attempt to understand why The Great Gatsby was considered a cultural touchstone and once touted as the Great American Novel, you’ll likely need to do some outside research. For at its core, Fitzgerald’s novel is a critique of wealth and the people who wield it carelessly. The lavish parties are only the surface; beneath them lies a culture of irresponsibility, in which money, luxury, and even other people are treated as disposable. Fitzgerald presents the rich as obsessed not only with acquiring wealth, but also with protecting it at any cost. That tension gives the novel much of its force and helps explain its lasting power: long before the stock market crash and the Great Depression, Fitzgerald recognized the moral emptiness at the heart of this world.

In this musical, however, the lavish façade becomes the main attraction. When Leanne Robinson and the cast launch into “New Money,” a song-and-dance celebration of reckless, decadent spending, the show reaches one of its high points. The number gives Linda Cho’s glittering costumes and Dominique Kelley’s choreography room to shine, and Director Marc Bruni’s staging is at its most dynamic. It is easy to see why the audience responds so enthusiastically—but it’s odd to realize that we’re cheering for a representation of exactly what the novel would like us to condemn.

Kait Kerrigan’s book follows the novel’s plot: narrator Nick Carroway (Joshua Grosso) moves to Long Island, where he reunites with his socialite cousin Daisy (Senzel Ahmady) and her wealthy but wolfish husband Tom (Will Branner). Nick learns that despite being a new mother, Daisy is deeply unhappy and that her husband Tom indulges in drug-fueled revels with his brassy mistress Myrtle (Lila Coogan).  Nick then gets pulled into the orbit of the “mysterious” millionaire Jay Gatsby (Jake David Smith), who subtly uses Nick’s connection with Daisy to engineer an affair between himself and Daisy, who he met and loved years earlier, during WW1.  To be coy, while love appears to bloom, events do not end well.

Joshua Grosso gives Nick a wry, appealing presence that makes him seem like one of the story’s few decent people. Yet the script shifts much of the audience’s sympathy toward his love interest, Jordan Baker (Leanne Robinson), a feminist golfer who defies social convention. Jordan’s character is built up significantly, and Robinson is the production’s clear standout, delivering some of the show’s best lines and its strongest number, “New Money,” with electrifying power. Lila Coogan as Tom’s mistress Myrtle is also a standout: she both looks and acts the part of the blowsy 1920s “broad” perfectly.  Her solo “One-Way Road” is brilliantly lit and delivered.

Jake David Smith brings a boyish charm to Jay Gatsby. His first solo, “For Her,” captures Gatsby’s longing for Daisy as he stands alone in his mansion, gazing toward the green light on her dock. Smith handles the song with sensitivity, balancing the character’s mystery with his loneliness. He is equally effective in the spoken scenes: the faint trace of a British accent nods to Gatsby’s Oxford past without ever muddying the text, and his wry delivery of “old sport” lands nicely. Smith also shines in “Only Tea,” which neatly conveys Gatsby’s nervous excitement at the thought of seeing Daisy again after five years. Like “For Her,” the number feels emotionally grounded and well built. Yet we see little evidence of the other less boyish character qualities that might have allowed Gatsby to acquire his millions.

Senzel Ahmady sings with sweetness and clarity, but her Daisy remains as elusive here as she is in Fitzgerald’s novel. Gatsby’s fixation on her can feel hard to grasp, though that may be the point: he seems to be in love less with Daisy herself than with an idealized memory of her. Her eleven o’clock number, “Beautiful Fool,” ultimately rings hollow. It gestures toward self-awareness, yet Daisy takes little responsibility for her choices and, in the end, lives up to the song’s title. The production makes clear that her husband, Tom Buchanan (an excellently sinister Will Branner), is abusive and unfaithful, but Daisy still lacks the resolve to break from him.

And yet none of this diminishes the audience’s visceral enjoyment of the production’s sheer spectacle and polish, which is great! The set is pure glitz. While I am not always a fan of the digital backdrops which are used extensively through this production, there are enough gold and glittering actual set pieces that it can almost be forgiven. An updated Art Deco flair is the main theme in the sets and projections by Paul Tate DePoo III and it contrasts beautifully with the gritty gas station set that plays heavily into the plot.  Likewise, costumes designed by Linda Cho bring an updated flair to the roaring 20’s. The “Gatsby” look is something that been the theme of many parties and weddings but to take that and elevate it for the purpose of a stage musical is a gutsy and bold move. It is hard to beat this show for glitz and glamour.

Running Time: Approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes with one intermission

The Great Gatsby plays through May 24^th 2026 with Broadway at The National— 1321 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004. For tickets call the box office at (202) 628-6161 or purchase them online.