3 Classic Novels. 22 Minutes. Why Not?

By CHARLES McGRATH

Published: May 23, 2011

Elevator Repair Service has nothing to do with elevators. It’s a theatrical troupe whose main job lately has been to stage unusual readings of classic American novels. Book in hand, the actors recite the text and pretty soon start behaving in ways that indicate how they’ve been taken over by it.

The group has so far done the first chapter of Faulkner’s “Sound and the Fury” this way, as well as a version of “The Sun Also Rises,” by Hemingway, and most famously, a full-length, word-for-word performance of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel “The Great Gatsby,” which, as “Gatz,” had an acclaimed run at the Public Theater last fall.

Over the weekend, as part of the centennial celebration of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the Fifth Avenue headquarters of the New York Public Library, the troupe presented a simultaneous mash-up of all three novels in brief performances in the library’s periodical room. “The Sound and the Fury,” “The Sun Also Rises” and “The Great Gatsby” in just 22 minutes? Why not? We all have short attention spans these days.

.... Elevator Repair Service Performs at New York Public Library - NYTimes.com