Circus sagas so easily lend themselves to bathos: “Ridi, pagliaccio” and all that. Director Jessica Stone’s stage rendition of Water for Elephants – adapted by book writer Rick Elice from the best-selling novel (2006) and film (2011) – captures all the drama, but it’s clean-cut and concise, propulsive with passion and action. Unlike some other literary adaptations in the works or already on the boards, this production stands on its own merits as theatre. You could walk in with no prior knowledge, no expectations, and be transported.
Elice gets right down to business. We do get a framing device (as per the novel), set in vaguely modern times. AWOL from his retirement home, codger Jacob Jankowski (Gregg Edelman, dry and bemused), stays too long at the fair and gets to chatting with the one-tent circus proprietor (Paul Alexander Nolan, nice in this guise).
Quickly, the two fall headlong into a Depression Era flashback, the heart of the drama. The youthful embodiment of Jacob (Broadway newcomer Grant Gustin, unshowily stellar) hops a train when his home life and professional prospects abruptly implode. The composer/lyricist team – the seven-member PigPen Theatre Co. – gives Jacob a haunting song as he heads out on his own: “That patch of earth, the person you were / those people you loved / they’re gone, move on.”
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
The itinerant circus crew that Jacob falls in with, led by a hulking foreman/enforcer (Wade McCollum), are less than welcoming: it’s their custom to “red-light” interlopers – toss them from the moving train. Jacob survives thanks to the intercession of circus-lifer Camel, played by Stan Brown, who’s touching and full voiced in his Broadway debut at 61. If the performers’ CVs might seem a trifle irrelevant, they’re not: This is a tight, supportive company which fills the stage with awe-inspiring feats just like Montreal’s 7 Doigts collective. (Shana Carroll, the co-founder of that company, is responsible for the circus design of Water for Elephants and brought along four of the acrobatic ensemble members.)
Presto-chango: A full-blown circus campground springs to life as magically as a children’s pop-up book. The “spike men” pound tent posts in a synchronized circle; an acrobat plummets scarily head-first down a pole (kudos to scenic designer Takeshi Kata and to Jesse Robb, who shares choreography credit with Carroll).
As an untested interloper, Jacob finds himself alternately welcomed and bullied by the ringmaster/owner, August (Paul Alexander Nolan, playing the flip side of the friendly contemporary version). Commanding the allegiance if not the admiration of his crew, August has a not-so-secret sadistic streak, as evidenced when he subjects the new kid to a gotcha initiation involving a famished lion.
Surviving all odds and despite his lack of professional experience, Jacob finds himself appointed company veterinarian. He’s captivated by the entire menagerie and also, disastrously, by the ringmaster’s star equestrian spouse, Marlena (Isabelle McCalla, who projects a mesmerizing mix of gentleness and grit).
The puppetry style (credited to Ray Wetmore & JR Goodman of More Good Productions and Camille Labarre) tends to be more allusive than literal, but wow, does it work! In a scene involving an injured horse, for instance, we’re basically seeing only two halves, but they conjure the whole. While McCalla exquisitely croons – in a pindrop pianissimo – the haunting song “Easy” to the heavy head nestled in her lap, silk aerialist Antoine Boissereau, embodying the steed’s wispy tail, spirals skyward.
Rosie, the salvaged elephant who’ll have to keep the foundering company from being sold for parts, is far more substantial, especially given handler Caroline Kane’s telegraphed facial expressions.
It is a circus, after all: everyone pitches in. Myriad other actors have their shining moments: e.g., Sara Gettelfinger as the Eve-Arden-look-and-sound-alike “cooch tent” housemother, and Joe De Paul as a sour, asocial clown.
The cruel and mercurial August, reigning over the entire community, occupies a force field all his own. Marlena’s steady hand can only get her so far in trying to tame his free-floating animus. Eventually Jacob, her fellow empath, will be forced to take a stand, which means that Gustin has a tricky characterological tightrope to maneuver. Playing the beta-male, he must appear unprepossessing enough to provide an appealing contrast to a brute, while conveying sufficient charisma and mastery to carry off a leading role on a Broadway stage.
Gustin treads that line adroitly. He’s in excellent company.
Water for Elephants opened March 21, 2024, at the Imperial Theatre. Tickets and information: waterforelephantsthemusical.com
