The '20s roar again in 'The Great Gatsby' at Bay Street Theater

“A colossal affair by any standard” is how Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” describes the lavish estate of the novel’s self-made protagonist.

The not-so-humble abodes serving as the Jazz Age classic’s backdrop are an amalgam of Gold Coast mansions where the writer socialized while taking up residence in Great Neck. Likewise, the   area provided inspiration for the fictional new and old money bastions — East Egg and West Egg — in Fitzgerald’s novel.

Now another Long Island locale, the village of Sag Harbor, has forged a connection to the Roaring '20s tale. The Bay Street Theater’s area debut of Simon Levy’s 2006 stage adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” — the only one authorized by Fitzgerald’s estate — also marks the 10th anniversary of the theater’s “Literature Live!” series, an annual program linked to the Arts-in-Education initiative for local students.

Along with its recognizable scenery, the story remains pertinent to contemporary audiences. “Gatsby is a fabrication — he’s invented himself out of thin air,” notes actor Charlie Westfal, who plays the mysterious millionaire. “But he is also dealing with very real, concrete issues. It touches on class, race and gender and the roles that we play.”

For Westfal, Gatsby’s impassioned pursuit of the American dream and married socialite Daisy Buchanan — the personification of that dream — speaks to his own decision to forge a path for himself and his commitment to it.  As a quarterback at a small liberal arts college, Westfal aspired to expand his horizons and found himself performing onstage in front of his peers. “I was not comfortable and therefore knew that it was a good marker to go toward,” he says.

The actor admits he was hesitant about tackling Fitzgerald’s masterwork. “His prose is so rich, it’s almost as if it should only be absorbed in solitude, and the theater is a collective experience.”

Another challenge in bringing the novel to the stage was conveying its visual grandeur and extravagant party atmosphere with a cast of only nine and within Bay Street’s intimate theater-in-the-round design. Director Joe Minutillo and his creative team’s inventive use of projections — notably in the hydroplane and car-riding scenes — help the audience to get there.

Just as Fitzgerald slowly strips away the illusion of the American dream, so, too, does the Bay Street Theater’s production aim to expose the core of his work. “It is hard to get to the essence of what Fitzgerald is doing,” Westfal says, “but that’s what you do, as an actor that’s what you sign up for.”