The Myth of the American Dream

In the last two weeks, I’ve managed to see two new musicals that each offer their own critique of the American dream — Gatsby: An American Myth, which premiered earlier this summer at the American Repertory Theatre here in Cambridge, and The Queen of Versailles, which is in its pre-Broadway run in Boston. 

Gatsby: An American Myth is a musical adaptation of the classic American novel, The Great Gatsby (not to be confused with another musical adaptation, The Great Gatsby, currently showing on Broadway). In adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, the musical seeks to complicate the back stories of many of the book’s main characters. The musical’s characters are each striving for the American dream in their own ways. Nick Carroway is a veteran who survived a world war and global pandemic and is now trying to survive those lingering traumas and live the American dream in New York City. George and Myrtle Wilson lost a child to the Spanish flu and now Myrtle is desperate to escape her grief and the working class existence that she believed killed her child. Jay Gatsby is trying to reinvent himself as an enigmatic millionaire, obscuring his humble Heartland roots. And Daisy is living the American dream with wealth and the perfect family, or is she?

The Queen of Versailles is a musical adaptation of the 2012 documentary of the same name. The musical follows Jackie Siegel and her husband David as they attempt to build the biggest single-family home in America, modeled off the Palace of Versailles, and navigate the 2008 financial crisis, which throws the project into jeopardy. It tells the story of Jackie’s normal childhood and early adulthood in Endwell, New York, her marriage to wealthy businessman David Siegel, and finally the ostentatious flaunting of their wealth, culminating in their still incomplete project to build their very own Versailles. 

The musicals trace the rise and fall of their over-the-top main characters from humble beginnings to extravagant and outlandish wealth and finally to sad, lonely endings. In Act Two of The Queen of Versailles, Jackie’s daughter dies of an overdose, and while Jackie mourns the loss of her daughter, she also immediately pivots to how she can make more money off of the tragedy and how they can get their house project back on track. In Gatsby: An American Myth as in the novel itself, the show ends in tragedy — Myrtle, George, and Gatsby dead, their friends scattered. 

Both shows end with similar scenes in sad, empty mansions: in the closing scene of Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is dead, no one came to his funeral, and the house that hosted his lavish parties sits vacant. In the final moments of The Queen of Versailles, Jackie is all alone in her still unfinished Versailles, her husband busy working, her daughter dead, her other children away at college. The huge unfinished house with her alone in it. 

Gatsby and the Siegels amassed all that wealth and power and yet to what end? They were always striving for more, for the American dream of making it big and breaking out of their social class, but at what cost?

I left each show with the distinct feeling that when it comes to the American dream, no one really wins. You really don’t end up rooting for any of the characters and are left feeling a little depressed about the sad ways they lived their lives. In fact, you’re left feeling that the American dream might be a myth, an absurd and laughable farce. 

There’s a line near the end of Gatsby that has stuck with me. I can’t quite remember the exact quote but as one of the characters observes Gatsby’s empty mansion he exclaims, “This place is haunted!” He then quickly corrects himself: it’s not just the house that’s haunted, America is haunted, this whole country is haunted! 

Certainly, both shows are making a statement that the American dream might be cursed. Rather than offering a happy, triumphant, or uplifting ending, they force the audience to sit with that unsettled feeling.