‘The Great Gatsby’ musical at Mirvish is a sparkly but soulless Broadway tour

All of which is oddly appropriate. Much like the show’s titular figure, social media exploits the appearance of wealth, success and exclusivity. If the fictional Jay Gatsby, who amassed his wealth by suspicious means, were alive today, he’d be snapping a photo of himself and tagging his long-lost love, Daisy. As an afterthought, he might hashtag his creator, F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose classic novel celebrated its centenary last year.

Fitzgerald truly seems like an afterthought in this beautiful, but rather hollow, show.

While the musical, like most adaptations (including the 1974 and 2013 films), focuses on the romance and the glitz and glamour of Jazz Age excess, its characters are paper-thin, and its examination of that high school English class staple — the death of the American Dream — feels slight.

What’s worse, Kait Kerrigan’s book for the musical — and Marc Bruni’s scattered direction — have no consistent point of view. We begin with Nick Carraway (Joshua Grosso) narrating his story for us, as he does in the novel. But that POV is quickly swept under the moveable art deco columns that dominate Paul Tate dePoo III’s elegant set. (The designer also created projections that attempt to enhance his sets, with uneven results.)

Nick, a war veteran and struggling bond salesman, moves from the Midwest to New York, where he finds a modest home in Long Island, next door to Gatsby’s (Jake David Smith) palatial mansion. Turns out Nick’s cousin Daisy (Senzel Ahmady), who lives across the bay in the more exclusive, old money section of town with her husband Tom Buchanan (Will Branner) and her young daughter, was once in love with Gatsby before he became wealthy.

Tom, meanwhile, is carrying on an affair with Myrtle (Lila Coogan), whose husband, George (Justin Scott Brown), runs the gas station that is indirectly connected to Gatsby’s business dealings. Also in the mix is Daisy’s friend Jordan (Leanne Robinson), a golfer, whom Daisy tries to set up with Nick.

Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen’s songs aren’t especially memorable. At best, they’re pleasant, generic jazz and pop numbers that give us a basic sense of a character or situation. At worst, they’re on-the-nose eye-rollers that seem like the results of the following AI prompt: “Can you write songs about the book’s main symbols, like the green light and that billboard of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg?”

The group numbers, enhanced by Dominique Kelley’s lively choreography — including a standout tap number — are suitably rousing.

The actors prove a mixed bag. Smith and Ahmady have zero chemistry together, the former mugging like a ‘90s sitcom, the latter delivering her dialogue with an affected, neurotic edge, as if she’s Liza Minnelli. Edward Staudenmayer has fun as Gatsby’s shady business partner, Meyer Wolfsheim (long flagged as an anti-Semitic character), flocked in his big number by dancers who appear outfitted like Spy vs. Spy baddies.

Coogan does the best she can with her underwritten, shrewish character who survives a couple of the worst-directed scenes in the show. Grosso and Robinson are the most memorable, establishing an amusing bond as the will-they-or-won’t-they couple in this rarefied world.

There’s one aspect of the show that lives up to the title’s adjective. That would be the costumes by Toronto-raised Linda Cho, who won her second Tony Award for the show in 2024. From her splashy peacock-like creations during party scenes to more intimate moments involving just a few characters hanging out at a Plaza Hotel suite, her clothes take on a life of their own.

Even when we’re shown computer-generated fireworks on a screen, you’ll be savouring the colour and texture in Cho’s outfits. Whoever greenlit her work on the show deserves a special award.