Not everything goes well in Jessica Stone's production–there's a reason the words “dream sequence” tend to ring alarm bells–but at least it evokes a coherent theatrical world. And for the most part, the show (which had its world premiere in Atlanta in June of this year) unashamedly mixes the romance and pathos that made its original, Sarah Gruen's bestseller, a cult favorite. It expresses the situation.
Like the novel, Rick Ellis's book moves back and forth between the present day of elderly Jacob Jankowski (Greg Edelman) and 1931, the fateful year in which he joins the circus. Dropping out of veterinary school right before his final exams, young Jacob (the charming Grant Gustin, who played the title character on the CW series “The Flash”) finds a job and escape from his changing life. Benzini brothers.
The costume's owner and leader, August (Paul Alexander Nolan), is a sophisticated and charming man, but in the 2011 film version, played by Christoph Waltz, it is clear that he has a dark side. You know that. Back to the point at home, every time August opens his mouth to sing, the score by the seven-piece group Pigpen Theater Company suddenly sounds like a sub from the masters of macabre charm, Kander and Ebb.
The victims of August's brutality are everyone in the circus, and above all, his wife Marlena (a silver-voiced Isabel McCullough, confirming the promise she showed in “The Prom”) and the elephants that gather the crowd. . , Rosie.
Like all musical beasts, Rosie is a puppet, and the production's use of artistic devices is masterfully integrated. This means that “Water for Elephants'' has been compared to “The Lion King'' and even the underrated “Life of Pi,'' but the new show uses puppets a little differently. Here, the circus is both a setting and a storytelling tool, so the line between spectacle and life is blurred, and the story of humans and animals interlocking makes sense. The most impressive example is Silver Star, a horse brought to life by acrobat Antoine Boiséro. The scene where Boiseleau performs an aerial number while Malena sings the aching ballad “Easy” while cradling a doll horse's head might as well have been sponsored by Kleenex.
Similarly, although Benzini's performance is filled with acrobatics, the precision and physicality of the cast also illuminates seemingly mundane tasks, such as driving stakes to pull up a tent. This is a life of ever-present danger and requires ever-present athleticism. These elements were fluidly woven into the show by Shana Carroll, founder and artistic director of the Montreal circus design collective Sevenfingers, who co-choreographed it with Jesse Robb. (Carroll's Seven Fingers colleague Gypsy Snyder had been working on a circus-inspired revival of Diane Paulus' Pippin a decade earlier.)
It's telling that it took me so long to get back into music because it's not the thing that leaves the strongest impression. At their best, these numbers sound like his 1930s, passing through his late 1960s and early 70s folk rock. “Wild,” a duet between Jacob and Marlena, emulates the romanticism of early Joni Mitchell, while several songs contain melodic melancholy and periods. The atmosphere is reminiscent of Randy Newman's exploration of Americana. But the lyrics never come close to Newman's sharp angles, too often succumbing to bland seriousness. If only I had hoped that this score would be as free from gravity as the rest of the show.
give water to elephant, underway at the Imperial Theater in New York. 2 hours 40 minutes. Waterforelephantsthemusical.com.