WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

REVIEW BY CELIA IPIOTIS

From start to finish, Water For Elephants weaves a veil of fantastical images elevated through music and lyrics performed by the indie folk music collective PigPenTheaterCo.

Informed by a remarkable  cast of circus, performance and theater artists, an elderly man, Jacob (Gregg Edelman) slips into the back of a circus and begins to regale the young performers with tales of his life in the circus.

After jumping on a railroad car, the young Jacob Jankowski (Grant Gustin) falls in with a colorful crowd of circus artists. The charismatic but harsh owner and circus ringmaster, August (Paul Alexander) offers Jacob some menial tasks until he learns Jankowski studied to be a vet. His future is sealed.

Of course, there are plenty of acrobatics but they are all wrapped inside the story of human pathos and dreams. When Jacob spots the luminous  circus star Marlena (Isabelle McCalla) riding her magnificent white stallion, he falls uncontrollably in love. But she’s the boss’s wife, and that boss holds a cruel, violent side.

This production is astonishing because the poetic images narrating the tale mingle memorably with the word, movement, and music. The director Jessica Stone and choreographers, Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll work hand in hand to breathe life into the memory of a world both heartless and passionate.

Countless, breath-taking images sear themselves in one’s memory through the life-like puppets and actors suspended in the air and defying gravity on the ground. In one awe-inspiring moment, Antoine Boissereau operates Marlena’s mare’s head while Keaton Hentoff-Killian manipulates long white silk panels for the body. When Silver Star suffers excruciating pain and can no longer perform, acrobat Hentoff-Killian wraps himself in the silk scarf over and over like a mummy, while rotating up a rope. At the top, he releases the material. It unravels and he plummets to the ground stopping with only one inch to spare between his head and the floor. People gasp and sob.

Unhappy about losing his prize act, August needs a replacement and in a twist of fate, gains the very sympathetic elephant named Rosie. Dumbo-sized eyes and enormous flapping ears make her the new star.

But in a comical twist, when Rosie arrives, Marlena is unable to teach her commands.  The seemingly unteachable elephant elicits August’s wrath until it’s discovered Rosie was formerly owned by a Polish man and therefore speaks Polish!

Although the ensemble of actors and puppeteers all deserve unending applause, Nolan stands out in the role of the complicated and explosive August as does Marlena whose devotion to Nolan is noble but impractical.

Visual fluency constantly intersects with acrobatics, puppets and lyrical dance sequences. The seamless pictures projected minute by minute are a result of the evocative sets by Takeshi Kata, projections by David Benhali and Bradley King’s subtle lighting. 

Alongside the stunning images, each character springs fully to life under the direction of Stone who breathes compassion and poignancy into a story that lingers in the mind.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis