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Ex-theatre boss Elizabeth Newman returns to Pitlochry to put The Great Gatsby on stage

The former artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre is coming back to put on her final show - for now, at least.

We caught up with Elizabeth Newman six months on from her Pitlochry departure. Image: Sam Taylor.
We caught up with Elizabeth Newman six months on from her Pitlochry departure. Image: Sam Taylor.

“Of course I’m missing Pitlochry,” says Elizabeth Newman.

“Especially during the summer, which is always the most exciting, vibrant, full-on time to be there, when the town is flooded with people coming to visit, and lots and lots of people come to the theatre.

“I miss the River Tummel too, which I used to live on.”

Since the announcement of Newman’s shock departure from the role of artistic director at Pitlochry Festival Theatre late last year, a lot has changed.

She and her family have moved to Sheffield, where she now has her feet under the table as artistic director of all four Sheffield Theatres venues.

And her replacement at Pitlochry was an even bigger shock announcement, with the news that Alan Cumming has come home to do the job.

Artistic director Alan Cumming outside Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Image: Marieke McBean.

Yet the legacy Newman left behind for Cumming was very much unbroken and not in need of fixing.

Whichever direction he chooses to go in, she’s passed on to him a vibrant community theatre with a reputation for smart, popular programming and a brand new studio space where smaller, edgier pieces of work can be presented.

The Great Gatsby ‘isn’t about Gatsby’?

For the moment, Newman’s final legacy in Pitlochry is this summer’s programme, which she planned before her departure – and her last piece of work will be this week’s The Great Gatsby, for which Newman has written the adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel.

How did Newman begin to approach adapting such a classic? Especially one which has already weathered two high-profile film adaptations.

“For me, the first thing you have to work out with an adaptation is, who are we following?” says Newman.

‘Gatsby’ and ‘Daisy’ in rehearsals for The Great Gatsby. Image: Chris Keatch.

“A lot of people think The Great Gatsby is about Gatsby, but it’s not really, it’s about Nick. It’s his story and he’s the one who changes forever because of what happens.

“The reason I love the novel is because I feel it articulates something very difficult about being alive, which is when you realise that not everybody is good.

“That moment when cynicism starts to creep into your heart, which is a shattering moment of realisation as an adult – if you’re lucky, because some people sadly learn it in childhood.

“Meeting Gatsby, seeing everything that happens between Gatsby and Daisy, and how Gatsby is treated in this world he inhabits, means this quite naiive man, Nick, comes to realise people are not always good.”

The dark heart of 1920s glamour

Another misinterpretation of The Great Gatsby is that the surface glamour of the 1920s is what it’s all about.

“Yeah, but it’s dark, and there are only really two parties in the novel,” says Newman.

“It absolutely is like now, politically it couldn’t be more on the money about the brutality of the privileged, and how it’s really hard to escape where you’re from if you’re not allowed to.

Cast in rehearsals after Elizabeth Newman adapted The Great Gatsby for Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Image: Chris Keatch.

“Unfortunately the world is very harsh for people who feel deeply, like Nick and Jay.

“At the same time, it’s how to keep that fizziness which audiences expect alive. I think we’ve succeeded at that, there’s enough action to mean audiences will be whipped up into this world that doesn’t let go of them.

“I hope they enjoy living in the 1920s for a bit and have lots of good conversations about it afterwards.”

Secret passion project in the works

Although this is Newman’s last production with Pitlochry for now, that doesn’t mean it’s her last ever.

She’s already tentatively spoken to Cumming about a co-production with Sheffield Theatres, and there remains an unnamed passion project she’d like to get off the ground at some point in the future.

For now, though, she’s looking forward to revisiting her old home this week.

The Great Gatsby is at Pitlochry Festival Theatre from Friday June 27 until Thursday September 25.

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