arts & life
theater
The
Playwright
u real
Simon Levy's
S
adaptation of
Fitzgerald's
classic comes
to Detroit.
Suzanne Chessler I Contributing Writer
shortcut and a detour have been
important driving forces in the the-
ater work of Simon Levy, producing
director of the Fountain Theatre
in Los Angeles and playwright
of The Great Gatsby production
being performed by the Hilberry
Theatre in Detroit.
A shortcut changed the direc-
tion of Levy's career, and a detour
affected his adaptation of the E
Scott Fitzgerald novel about the
troubling interactions among
very wealthy neighbors in the
1920s.
"My whole life in high school
had been music:' says Levy, 66, in a phone
conversation from his home in California. "I
played saxophone and was in different school
bands.
"Out of high school, I was playing music on
the streets and doing odd jobs while trying to
earn a living as a musician. When I was 20, I
decided to go to college and earn a degree as a
music major.
"It just so happens that to get to the
music department at the City College of San
Francisco, the shortcut was through the theater
lobby. I would peek through the doors and
watch people on stage. I thought it looked kind
of cool, and my Jewish mother used to say I
should try to be an actor because I had such a
nice voice:'
Levy soon signed up for an acting class, had
a great time and made connections with the-
ater people. He switched his major to theater
and pursued acting for 10 years after getting
a master's degree from San Francisco State
University.
As soon as I got out of college, I became
associated with the One Act Theatre Company
in San Francisco, and my directing career took
off' he recalls.
"I had been writing all along, mostly poetry
and short stories. Eventually, that shifted to
writing plays. The first thing I adapted — on
a dare and as a lark — involved turning The
Addams Family TV show into a Christmas
show:'
After getting the rights to the play, he had a
successful run at One Act and has been adapt-
ing plays ever since. He also has been writing
original plays and film scripts.
In the career detour, Levy's work
on Gatsby kept being put off by
representatives from the Fitzgerald
estate, and he had to go in differ-
ent directions before getting those
rights.
"I grew up reading Fitzgerald's
books and loved them," he says. "I
went on a trip to the Soviet Union in
1989 and encountered a lot of the-
ater artists in Moscow.
"One of the things they do over
there — and we do more of that
now but not so much then — is adapting their
literary works into other genres, whether that
be theater, film, sculpture, music or poetry.
"I came back from that trip with this idea of
creating an American theater piece by adapt-
ing The Great Gatsby. When I approached the
Fitzgerald estate, they told me it was not avail-
able and another novel should be picked:'
Levy had just reread Tender Is the Night
and could identify with parts of it because of
circumstances in his own life. With that emo-
tional connection, he began the adaptation.
"I staged it at the Fountain Theatre, and
I went back to the estate and said, 'Here's
Tender'; it was a wonderful success, and I
would love to do Gatsby,;' Levy explains.
Told Gatsby still wasn't available, he accepted
the suggestion of doing The Last Tycoon. Levy
thought finishing the unfinished novel would
be an intriguing challenge.
"The story takes place in Hollywood, and I
felt that would be a good match for my theater
company:' says Levy, whose 90 directing and
producing credits include Jew or Not Jew, The
Pushcart Peddlers and Playing for Time.
"Tycoon was a wonderful success, and again
I went back to the estate and asked for the
rights to Gatsby. They gave me the rights to the
exclusive stage adaptation, and there have been
150 productions of it.
"I spent a lot of time with Fitzgerald. I read
everything that he wrote and a lot of the litera-
ture around his books. I feel like I understand
him. He wrote about the sensitive side of men
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Devri Chism and Santino Craven star as Daisy
and Gatsby
and was able to bring that out in his novels
because they were a reflection of his own inte-
rior life:'
Blair Anderson is directing the Hilberry
production. The cast includes Santino Craven
(Gatsby), Michael Manocchio (Nick Carraway)
and Devri Chism (Daisy Buchanan).
Back in California, Levy is staging a produc-
tion of The Painted Rocks of Revolver Creek
by Athol Fugard and adapting Henrik Ibsen's
An Enemy of the People, bringing it into 21st-
century America to deal with environmental
issues. *
details
The Great Gatsby is being
performed Oct. 30-31,
Nov. 5-7 and Jan. 7-9 at the
Hilberry Theatre.
$10-$32. (313) 577-2972;
hilberry.com .
JN
October 22 • 2015
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