Review: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS at Hollywood Pantages

If something looks, acts and dazzles like a circus, does that give said property big top credibility? In the case of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, a magical-suffused yarn set within the world of a traveling circus, the answer is…well…it’s kind of “who cares!” Visitors to the Hollywood Pantages (where ELEPHANTS parks through September 27) will likely be too bug-eyed and blown over to start categorizing. What we’re seeing is not exactly Ringling-adjacent nor is it in the ilk of Cirque du Soleil. This is a straight on musical theater narrative bearing the imprint of its original director, the uber-talented Jessica Stone, and a team of collaborators who span a whole mess of creative genres. Along with their marvelous ensemble, they take us away.

Based on the book by Sara Gruen (later a movie with Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson), the musical adaptation of ELEPHANTS packs a lot of enchantment into its 2.5 hours of stage time. The story itself is nothing terribly exciting, but there are acrobats, aerialists, a ringmaster and one very funny clown. Most importantly, there are animals, key players in this beast-loving tale brought astonishingly to life by puppetry designers Ray Wetmore & JR Goodman (credited as props and puppetry designer) and Camille Labarre under the puppet direction of Joshua Holden. Finally, there are the performers who play circus workers themselves, the kinks and rousts who are perpetually leaping, twirling and generally circus-ing as they erect the tent of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth in each new city.

Into their midst at the height of the Great Depression stumbles Jacob Jankowski (played by Zachary Keller), a young man running away to he knows not where after the death of his parents robs him of the opportunity to join the family veterinarian business. Jacob has unknowingly hopped aboard the Benzini Bros train and, rather than submitting to intimidation and being tossed, he talks himself into a job. The boss is mercurial ringmaster August (Connor Sullivan) who is married to performer Marlena (Helen Krushinski). Marlena has a sympatico with the circus’s four-legged stars – which are otherwise not treated especially well. Jacob reluctantly becomes the circus vet giving him proximity to the animals and to Marlena. Anon, when the circus acquires its first elephant, Rosie, to become its star attraction, it falls to Jacob and Marlena to get the animal show-worthy. As this develops, some heat is building between the new hire and the boss’s wife.

Amidst the constant razzle-dazzle of the musical numbers, the narrative tries to pack in quite a lot on the character and societal front. Ancillary characters include Camel (Javier Garcia), an older, broken-down carny who Jacob tries to protect, and Wade (Grant Huneycutt), the business’s muscle who carries out his boss’s every order no matter how cruel.

August himself is a hot mess of contradictions, on one hand, a coldly practical businessman who has to figure out how to keep the lights on and mouths fed during lean times; on the other a temperamental brute desperate to hold onto his wife while pushing her into the arms of another man. Sullivan does what he can locating the man’s torment, but the story villainizes him as it would likely do to anybody who engaged in animal cruelty. In Rick Elice’s book, any back-stories and inner demons faced by Marlena, August, Rosie et al, take a back seat to Jacob whose tale is framed and told by his older self (played by Robert Tully). The elderly Mr. Jankowski has run away from his assisted living home and found himself at another circus. As the two Jacobs, Keller and Tully - who often share the stage – are by turns impassioned, funny and bitter.

Book writer Elice is a prolific musical theater librettist whose work has spanned a gamut from jukebox biographies of well-known recording artists (JERSEY BOYS, THE CHER SHOW), to adaptations of previously told tales (THE ADDAMS FAMILY, SMASH). In his past Broadway ventures, Elice has collaborated shrewdly, surrounding himself with composers, directors and designers who could blow the roof off their productions. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS may be a distant cousin to PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS, but the two shows share a similar magic in the ways that they create and establish their respective worlds.

Because truthfully, whatever interest any of the WATER FOR ELEPHANTS’ lead characters generate or fail to spark, their work is largely in service of the production’s greatest strength – its world. The circus world ensemble numbers of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS don’t just pop, they explode. Choreographed with constant movement and, sure, big top brio by Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll (Carroll is also credited with the production’s circus design), the scene-setting “Another Train” brings to life the railway cars that are the workers’ traveling home. Immediately following, we are treated to the players pitching the tent to the weary yet joyous “The Road Don’t Make You Young.” In these full-throttle ensemble numbers, the folk-laced score created by PigPen Theatre Company meshes splendidly with Robb and Carroll’s choreography. With so much going on, there are times when you won’t know where to look.

That’s not at all an issue, however, once we start meeting the animals, which are enacted via an array of human actors and puppets. Marlena is first encountered as she tends to Silver Star, a once majestic but now aging performing horse. As Krushinsky cradles Silver Star’s head and mane, the animal’s spirit is brought evocatively to life by aerialist Yves Artieres who as he spins and cavorts above the action, is as lithe and graceful as any stallion. The accompanying number, “Easy,” is enough to crack your heart open.

Rosie the elephant is no less majestic. First depicted representationally – via glimpse of her trunk, her ears - the creature emerges fully-formed via the collaborative work of Ella Huestis, Grant Hunneycutt, Bradley Parrish, John Neurohr and Carl Robinett. Even when we actually catch a glimpse of the individuals behind the trunk, the illusion sweeps us in, and we fully accept that this we’re watching an elephant.  

Ryan Emmons is the tour director, recreating the work of original director Jessica Stone. Stone’s previous musical theater effort, the 2023 Tony Award-winning KIMBERLY AKIMBO, also came through the Pantages. The good news for southern Californians: as the recently appointed Artistic Director at the La Jolla Playhouse, Stone figures to launch some of the theater’s next great journeys. Whatever train she’s conducting next, we’d be well advised to hop aboard.

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