It’s like your 10th grade English class — with dance breaks.
“The Great Gatsby” is, possibly, the Great American Novel, capturing the spirit of an era with vividly drawn characters and a critical eye on 1920s society. While author F. Scott Fitzgerald does sketch a memorable plot in the book, it’s really the characters that make “Gatsby” so great.
That’s the difficulty of adapting art. It is possible to fully flesh out characters in theater, of course, but it’s harder than in the form of prose. Especially when you add in musical numbers, it becomes a challenge to know a complex person in two hours and 30 minutes…