“Water for Elephants,” now playing in Chicago at the Nederlander Theatre, is set during the tawdry 1930s days of the American circus. This 2024 Broadway musical, an adaptation of the 2006 novel by Sara Gruen and the 2011 Reese Witherspoon movie, thus requires an ensemble of both legitimate circus artists and traditional Broadway ensemble members who can sing the theatrically serviceable score, composed by the ensemble known as the PigPen Theatre Co. Indeed, its fusion of those two demands, under the combined auspices of Jessica Stone (the original theater director) and Shana Carroll (the circus designer) is its greatest achievement.
But I suspect that it was also a convenient excuse to send this tour out without a union contract, which was not, of course, tolerated on Broadway. I’ve been on record for years as saying that these lower-cost tours, which typically play smaller markets and feature less experienced actors, don’t belong in downtown Chicago, where expectations are rightly higher. In this case, this was a rare example of a relatively recent Broadway hit going out with a non-Equity cast; that means a company who are almost all either very early in their careers (the theatrical players) or from an adjacent discipline (the circus performers). I suspect the producers decided this was the only way to make this piece viable as a tour, given its needs. They are entitled to make that choice, of course, but you, the ticket-buyer, should also be aware.
That said, this is a piece that elicits a potent response from an audience, which certainly was the case at the Nederlander Theatre on Tuesday night. The physical production does not feel cheap, and the core romantic couple, played by Helen Krushinski and Zachary Keller, are appealing; Keller, who has worked in Chicago theater and plays the lead role of Jacob Jankowski, has a very bright future ahead.
This is an exceptionally imaginative staging; Stone and Carroll (and their assistants) genuinely make you see the traveling circus, animals and all. (They’re beautiful, large-sized puppets, cleverly manifested at complicated angles). That said, it’s not fully a family show (older kids will be fine), in that the memory-based plot deals with an abusive ringmaster, not just of the circus menagerie but of his performer wife. The artful novel certainly doesn’t shrink from the brutality and casual human cruelty of that life, and although Rick Elice’s Broadway book makes wise adjustments to conform more to the expectations of the musical genre, and the piece doesn’t wallow in the harsh details, it’s still a story of cruelty and betrayal.
The novel tells the story’s core romantic triangle through the memories of the older Jacob (Robert Tully) once the circus vet and now a nursing home resident with a fading memory, reliving the experiences of his younger self. I don’t think that fully works. I had the same problem when I saw the show on Broadway.
The various worlds feature doubled actors as the man revisits his old life several decades later, maybe in actuality, maybe entirely in his head, but they aren’t sufficiently clear to have the full emotional oomph they need. (The very genial but unanchored Tully inevitably struggles to find his way to the center of the story.)
The other issue is that the need to play a benign character in one era and a cruel one in another tends to push the actor playing the circus owner, here Connor Sullivan, to create a melodramatic villain, whereas if you have read the novel, you’ll know that the character is far more complex. That’s the over-the-top case on the tour, and the same thing happened on Broadway.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
Review: “Water for Elephants” (2.5 stars)
When: Through July 5
Where: Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Tickets: $39-$130 at 312-977-1710 and broadwayinchicago.com
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