The improbable idea of drawing on Fitzgerald\u2019s novel for a cabaret\/variety show came from Ebony Bott, the Sydney Opera House\u2019s head of contemporary performance, after co-creators Craig Ilott and Stuart Couzens successfully crafted a show called L\u2019Hotel<\/em> last year.<\/p>\n Fruit flies: Juggler Florian Brooks shows off his skills at The Green Light.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Prudence Upton<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cWe were never trying to do a full theatrical adaptation,\u201d says Ilott, who also directed Michael Sheen in Amadeus<\/em> at the Opera House a year ago. \u201cIn fact, whenever I hear \u2018adaptation\u2019 I come out in a bit of a rash, mainly because our form has its limitations. At the same time, though, that form is fantastic. That vaudeville form of variety and that transaction with the audience is terrific: \u2018Wait five minutes, and maybe I\u2019ll love the next act.\u2019 There\u2019s a leniency with that which you don\u2019t get in opera and theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n The essence of the book that Ilott and Couzens focused on \u2013 to the exclusion of the other characters \u2013 is the love story, presented from Gatsby\u2019s point of view, and reimagined in a contemporary setting, \u201cas if,\u201d says Ilott, \u201cthe spirit of Gatsby lives on in this endless search for his Daisy.\u201c<\/p>\n The protagonists, played by Beau Sargent and Elke Uhd, are joined by other aerialists, burlesque performers, dancers and the singer Odette: entertainers employed by Gatsby to attract people, and thereby Daisy, to his home.<\/p>\n The contemporary nightclub music was a collaboration with Kim Moyes of The Presets, with whom Couzens had worked before. \u201cWe wanted someone who hadn\u2019t necessarily come from a theatre background,\u201d he says, \u201cbut was very true to that club vibe.\u201d<\/p>\n The design follows through, with the Studio reconfigured as a bar, The Green Light, with tables and chairs, at which many audience members are served Gatsby-themed food and drink. The bar takes its name from the light on the end of Daisy\u2019s jetty in the novel, at which Gatsby longingly gazed across the water.<\/p>\n \u201cThe beauty of any good cocktail rap bar from around the world is they blur the edges of time,\u201d says Couzens. \u201cYou could be sitting in this bar in the 1920s or the 2020s, and you could be looking at the same things, hearing the same things, seeing the same characters, drinking the same cocktails and having the same canapes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want it to be quite transportative when you get in there, and rather than people waiting for the show to start, the service for those people [at the tables] begins right away\u2026 They\u2019ve bought an experience that includes food and drink, and they can continue to buy at their tables throughout the night, as can other guests who are in more traditional seating.\u201d<\/p>\n Ilott and Couzens are also hoping to evoke the era\u2019s decadence and hedonism. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to take our club from 9pm to 3am, and we\u2019re concertinaing it into the 75 minutes of the show,\u201d explains Ilott. \u201cWe want to feel like we\u2019re increasingly getting into the deeper, darker, wilder parts of the night as we continue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018We want to feel like we\u2019re increasingly getting into the deeper, darker, wilder parts of the night.\u2019<\/p>\n The pair has worked together for 11 years, initially with Couzens playing producer and production manager, and Ilott creative director. As the friendship has developed, the creative partnership has deepened, to the point where this show was built collaboratively from scratch, with Couzens having more focus on design (including catering), and Ilott on performance, with the music a shared passion.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve seen many productions around the world that promote themselves as \u201cimmersive\u201d theatre, but feel that few truly are in the way they\u2019re trying to do it. \u201cI think of the word immersive as meaning that we are immersed in the activity, and the performers are around us,\u201d Ilott says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n