‘Water for Elephants’: Excessive adaptation

‘WATER FOR ELEPHANTS’: The cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
Based on the Novel by Sara Gruen
Book by Rick Elise
Score by PigPenTheatre Co.
Choreography by Jesse Robb & Shana Carroll
Directed by Jessica Stone
Imperial Theatre
249 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.waterforelephants.com

By David NouNou

Whatever happened to the adage “less is more”? There is so much and nothing going on here that the head literally reels. Water For Elephants starts out in a reasonable fashion and within minutes, it becomes an overwrought runaway train.

The fairgrounds have closed, the circus has been dismantled, and there is the elder Jacob Jankowski, the ever genial (Gregg Edelman) admiring and enjoying the pleasures the circus has provided him over the years. He is greeted by the current mangers, June (Isabelle McCalla) and Charlie (Paul Alexander Nolan) and wonder what he is doing there, only to be told he escaped from the old age home and came to enjoy the circus, and starts retelling them what he did as far back as 1931 when he started working for a circus. We now meet Young Jacob (Grant Gustin). His parents died in a car crash. He was young with nowhere to go, and accidentally jumped on board a circus train and hoping to get at least one day’s work at Benzini Brothers Circus.

Young Jacob is met with a lot of hostility and animosity from “kinkers and rousts,” the names of circus performers. He is hired by August (Paul Alexander Nolan) to do odd jobs from cleaning stalls to pitching tents. Jacob can do and does everything. Next enters Marlena (Isabelle McCalla), the star attraction with a beautiful white horse. The horse has been overworked and a spur is jutting from his foot; ultimately, he must be put down. Jacob—who was studying to be a veterinarian at Cornell but never graduated—euthanizes the horse and that brings an end to the specialty attraction of the circus.

Jacob has now been assigned to get a new act for the circus—and it is in the form of a giant elephant who speaks only one language. Wait for it. It is Marlena and Jacob who have to get the elephant act up and running in order for the circus to continue. Oh, did I mention that Marlena is married to the abusive August when this new trio forms?

That is basically the story condensed and is, hopefully, comprehensible. Also, a further clarification is needed that the story jumps to past and present, so stay alert and keep up.

A circus is basically a fun place to go to and be amazed by all the illusions taking place. What we have here is all the daily grind routines and pressures a circus endures with none of the pleasures involved. The book by Rick Elise is so top-heavy with every turgid cliché imaginable. It keeps hammering at you repeatedly if you missed it the first couple of times. The nice guy, the sinister malevolent circus owner, his gentle and sweet wife, all the fun and mean circus folk, on and on and on.

Next is the score by Pigpen Theatre Co. It has a depression-era bluesy 1930s sound and for every dirge inserted, an upbeat song follows, then another dirge, another rousing number and so on and so on. When all else fails, brings on the “kinkers and rousts” to do all the tumbling, scaling each other, with the acrobats throwing themselves across the stage, over each other and under each other. These routine antics, thanks to choreographers Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll, are akin to an alarm, keeping things moving to keep the audience awake. At this point, we haven’t even hit intermission yet.

Last year, director Jessica Stone delivered the beautiful musical Kimberly Akimbo with laser-focused direction. There is so much extemporaneous stuff  going on just before intermission, including a dreadful stabbing act that completely boggles the mind on why it even exists.  Her direction here is so loose and all over the place that at least half an hour could have been trimmed from the show and you would not have missed a thing. Why? Everything is repeated multiple times. Finally, the curtain comes down at almost two hours and 45 minutes.

Two things that do stand out are the ever-charming Greg Edelman, who makes the evening somewhat bearable; and making his Broadway debut is Grant Gustin. Mr. Gustin has boundless energy and is put through the wringer but comes out shining.

Not to worry, though, as this is one of the shows that out-of-towners can fully appreciate.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published March 29, 2024
Reviewed at March 28, 2024 press performance

‘WATER FOR ELEPHANTS’: The cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

‘WATER FOR ELEPHANTS”: Marissa Rosen, Sara Gettelfinger, Taylor Colleton & Grant Gustin. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘WATER FOR ELEPHANTS’: Marissa Rosen, Gregg Edelman, Taylor Colleton, Sara Gettelfinger, Joe De Paul & Stan Brown. Photo: Matthew Murphy.