‘Water for Elephants:’ Topsy-turvy and Tuneful Under the Big Top

One of the many appeals offered by Water for Elephants—Sara Gruen’s 2006 best-selling novel as well as the 2011 film starring Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson—may not be obvious to theater-goers who enjoy musical adaptations of prior successes. Typically, the format for shows like this calls for the lead characters to reveal their innermost desires through a song (sometimes a duet) sung early in the first act. The audience, thus, identifies with the character on an emotional level and learns what the character hopes to achieve by the end of the story. Is he or she looking for a forever relationship of love and trust? Is it fabulous wealth? Or just enough money to get out of town? Is it a home in which to settle down or a life of “riding the rails” to unknown destinations? 

Indeed, in the first scene of this national touring production offered by PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh through the Cultural Trust at the Benedum only until Sunday, April 5, young Jacob Jankowski finds himself doing just that. He has jumped on a train in the middle of the night to have it take him wherever it might go. He sings his first song, “Anywhere/Another Train,” and then, by daylight, discovers he has boarded a circus train. In short time, the audience learns that we are riding the rails in Depression era America, that this circus is a small struggling one for which the “kinkers and rousts” on board work hard, and that, by immediate circumstance, Jacob is offered a day’s work with the circus crew. We learn, too, in the course of that first day, his father was a veterinarian, and so Jacob knows a little about animal care. Yet, atypical to musical theater, we don’t know what’s driving him. Who is this character? Why should we care about him?  What’s his game plan?

Ah, but to help answer those questions, we are introduced to Jacob Jankowski as an older man, now a resident of an elder care facility waiting for his son to visit so they can both go to the circus. Okay, we now know that the young Jacob Jankowski worked in the circus for more than the one day, that in fact, he made a career of it and, apparently, the older Jacob’s got a big story to tell about himself as young Jacob. And, so, like the title animal who needs water, we’re all ears.  

Yet, for purely entertaining reasons, that story takes a while to develop. First, we meet the circus menagerie of odd laborers and an old lion, of acrobats and a clown, of the star performer and her horse named Star. It’s all fun and frolic. Acrobats twirl high on ropes or rings, others tumble, some juggle, one flies flung from the bleachers to the bandstand. It’s all good circus fun. But, mind you, none of this moves the story along.

And then we meet the controlling ringmaster and his beautiful, but dutiful wife, Marlena, who is the star equestrian of the show and whose magnificent horse is showing signs of significant stress. Young Jacob is there to help both of them. And now, like the smell of popcorn or roasted peanuts, love is in the air. 

The musical offers many big numbers. Some sound honky-tonk, others are razzle-dazzle, and a few are folksier with banjo, fiddle and accordion, thus more appropriate to the era in which the story takes place. There’s not a bad song in the lot. But there’s not one tune that stands out.  And that’s disappointing, but maybe only for Pittsburgh audiences; the music and lyrics are all credited to the PigPen Theatre Company, a musical group of seven guys who came out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2011. Water for Elephants is only the second of two musicals they’ve helped to write. 

And, perhaps PigPen Theatre Company, despite the “sameness” of their tunes, should be applauded for this work. What’s so appealing about this musical version of Water for Elephants is that the anticipated character songs—the traditionally all-important “This is Me!” songs which help the audience relate emotionally—come well into the second half of the show. Of course, that atypical placement may be due to the story coming alive as a memory of the older Jacob Jankowski. Like Sara Gruen’s novel, the present-turned-past, herky-jerky timeline of the tale, takes a few dramatic turns to make sense, especially to a theater audience. 

Robert Tully plays the elder Mr. Jankowski to Zachary Keller’s younger Jacob. Both are fine performers. One feat they pull off seamlessly together is stepping—not “on”—but “into” each other’s lines. It’s a “wow” moment in this tight, traveling show. As Marlena, Helen Krushinski is a slight, perky performer, who handles the stage as well as any trapeze artist flying with ease.  In fact, she has the opportunity to do just that. And she also delivers her “This Is Me” solo in the second act with surprising resonance. It’s too bad we have to wait for it. Connor Sullivan takes on the role of the demanding, abusive ringmaster, August. He gets his big moment closing the curtain on Act One. But, so, too, does Rosie, the elephant that breathes new life into this poor circus. Rosie, like most of the other circus animals, are created as puppets, manipulated magically by stage performers who take on dozens of other dance, juggling, and acrobatic roles. Other standouts include Tyler West as Walter the Clown, and Javier Garcia as Camel—mind you, not a pretend or puppet camel—just a longtime circus “kinker” whose name may suggest how long he’s been carrying water.

Water for Elephants, like the seven Tony nominations it earned in 2023, exceeds every expectation for a Broadway musical that attempts to capture life in the circus. It’s all a bit topsy-turvy, filled with animal hi-jinx, and loaded with aerial acrobatics, but let’s not kid ourselves; this is a great—but not the greatest—show on earth. 

Photos by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.jpg

C. Prentiss Orr is a Pittsburgh-based writer who covers theater and other topics for Entertainment Central. He is the author of the books The Surveyor and the Silversmith and Pittsburgh Born, Pittsburgh Bred.

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