It was a full house for SUDS’ final show of The Great Gatsby in their very first on the Macrobert main stage.
The adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s revered novel was a roaring success, with the cast comfortably stepping up to the perform in front of a packed audience.
The opening scenes introduced you first to Tom Buchanan, an arrogant millionaire, portrayed by Rowen Rennie, who brought the antagonistic character to life.
Alongside him was his wife, Daisy Buchanan, played by Cewein Hemingway Brunt. Cewein’s performance of a woman constantly emotionally manipulated and put down was candid and harrowing alongside Rowen’s boisterous performance.
During the first act we were also introduced to Nick Carraway, brilliantly portrayed by Andrew Hart, and Jordan Baker another fantastic portrayal of Daisy Buchanan’s best friend from Heather Bounds.
Next was Tom’s mistress Myrtle Wilson played by Rachel Clinton and her naïve husband George B Wilson by James Patterson. The kiss between Tom and Myrtle brought the affair to life whilst James Patterson played the role of the scorned husband, taken for a fool time and time again by Tom earnestly.
Another key character was of course Gatsby played by Matthew Crawford Russell. Who put on a strong performance of the peculiar and notorious millionaire obsessed with Tom’s wife Daisy.
From the outset as a member of the audience you were wrapped up in the story by the chemistry from all the cast that brought the play to life. Along with the subtle but effective sets the audience were mostly drawn to the emotion and performance on stage.
Overall the first half was pretty long, and the suspense built up slowly giving the audience time to get a real grasp of the characters and their relations among each other. The second half was filled with the main action as tragedy struck. Murder and suicide took over the stage as characters were killed off one by one.
Director Abby Ferguson said, “We wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of getting to be on the main stage and incorporate more experimental and ambitious elements of production than we had before. The cast and crew really rose to the challenge and took the show to the next level. I’m very happy with how the production went and incredibly proud of everyone involved, hopefully it’s the start of SUDS taking on more and more exciting challenges and trying new things for our members and our audiences”
The play on a whole was great and you could really tell how much work had been put in. Stirling University Drama Society has a band of extremeley talented actors and Brig is excited to see what they will put on next.
Film Media and Journalism student at the University of Stirling. Editor in Chief at Brig Newspaper. Edinburgh / Stirling
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