When at the start of “Water for Elephants,” Jacob jumps a train during the Depression, he lucks out – and so do we.
“You didn’t jump just any old train, son,” a character named Camel tells him. “This here’s the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth! Welcome to the circus!”

The circus setting is the excuse for what’s most awe-inspiring about this musical adaptation of Sara Gruen’s 2006 bestselling novel, which opened tonight at Broadway’s Imperial Theater. It’s the Big Top-like entertainment, especially the heart-stopping acrobatics, which are not just athletically spectacular but often visually beautiful and emotionally expressive, enhancing the dancing and even advancing the story.

Much else in “Water for Elephants” has its pleasures – the score, the singing, the puppetry, the acting, even the love story —  but nothing else matches the circus artistry for its originality, variety and consistency. 

This surprised me, since I’m not a particular devotee of circus acts, but I am an outright fan of the Pigpen Theater Company, who are making their Broadway songwriting debut. The seven members of Pigpen, who met as freshmen at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2007, are a unique combination of band and theater collective – composers, playwrights, performers; storytellers. I’ve always though they gave off  a back-to-the-country long-hair next-generation hippie vibe, favoring  old-timey string instruments (definitely banjo and fiddle, perhaps an accordion; I could picture a washboard.)

Their score of nearly two dozen musical numbers for “Water for Elephants” is most successful when the number sounds like a hip hootenanny — such as one of the first, “The Road Don’t Make You Young,” which begins with the workmen rhythmically slamming sledgehammers to set up the circus tents, then moves Jacob (and us) through a typical show day of a traveling circus in 1931 – the Fairway, where the rousts pitch or push the rubes into the Big Tent; the cages with the circus animals, like Agnes the orangutan and Rex the toothless lion; the cooch tent, where the ladies strip for the rubes. The song finally ends with a roust who slides down a pole to place a top hat on the head of the ringmaster and owner of Bendini Bros. August (Paul Alexander Nolan.)  Here’s a music video of the number, which focuses on the musicians, with only a few glimpses of the actors:

Here’s the song accompanying a short trailer that glimpses some of the scenes from that number:

Pigpen is less distinctive in its Broadway-style ballads. Here is a music video of Isabelle McCallas as Marlena and Grant Gustin as Jacob singing a love duet, “Wild”

Even their most appealing melodies rarely have lyrics that advance the story (“The Road Don’t Make You Young” is interrupted for dialogue that explains each scene.) The songs do offer a scattering of memorable phrases — In the song “Squeaky Wheel,” his circus pals warn Jacob to stay away from the boss’s wife with: “Yer a balloon in a room full of pins.”  –but such lines sit side-by-side with surprisingly frequent use of clichés and forced rhymes

I had lower expectations for the story, having seen the 2011 movie adaptation of the novel, starring Rob Pattinson as Jacob, Reese Witherspoon as Marlena, Christoph Waltz as August (Marlena’s husband), and a veteran elephant named Tai as Rosie, and finding the lovable Rosie far more interesting and believable than the love triangle.  Adapted by Rick Elice (a pro whose Broadway credits include “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “Jersey Boys.”) the book of the musical doesn’t stray far from the original:

Old Mr Jankowski (Gregg Edelman) has escaped his nursing home to attend a nearby traveling circus, but he’s late, and runs into Charlie and June from the circus, who are astounded when they learn he was there for “the Benzini Stampede” of 1931. “That’s like the greatest disaster in circus history.” So he then backs up and tells the story, reappearing periodically to narrate, while we see a young Jacob (Gustin) jump that train. We don’t see, but only hear of, his parents having died in a car crash, his losing their house, and forced to drop out of veterinary school shortly before graduating. When August the owner learns of Jacob’s veterinary skills, he’s put to work, especially with the star attraction, the white horse Silver Star and the horse’s elegantly-dressed rider Marlena (McCalla.).  Jacob and Marlena fall in love, not only with one another, but with the elephant August acquires from another circus that has gone belly up during the Great Depression.

Three different puppet artists are credited with the creation of the lions and leopards, as well as Queenie the dog, and if some of the ferocious cats only briefly reminded me of the more elaborate, cutting-edge puppetry in Life of Pi, what they do with Rosie is adorable – teasing us for much of the first act, with first a shadow puppet, then just a trunk held by a lone puppeteer, then four mammoth legs, and finally the full beast, mammoth of body with its long-lashed eyes blinking coquettishly.

Director Jessica Stone has smartly incorporated within her large multitalented cast a substantial contingent of trained circus performers. One of them, Joe De Paul, has one of the speaking roles, as Walter, a circus clown who is Jacob’s initially irascible roommate but eventually becomes one of his friends.  De Paul, who began his career as a clown performing for Cirque du Soleil, puts his skills to use in a delightful comic routine that makes August the butt of his jokes, which involves juggling and getting jabbed with a knife.

Shana Carroll, co-founder of the much-lauded Montreal-based circus company, The 7 Fingers, is credited as the circus designer of “Water for Elephants,” but also as the co-choreographer, reflecting how much circus skills are incorporated into most every aspect of the production. Even the Broadway veterans get into the act – Nolan as August cracks a bullwhip, McCalla as Marlena swings on a trapeze. 

The Broadway performers all do a fine job. But if I remember anything about this show, it will be an early scene, when Jacob meets Marlena, who’s tending to Silver Star. Jacob, the vet, takes a look at Silver Star and realizes he’s fractured his leg bone, a terrible injury, and is in great pain; the humane thing is to put him down.  As Marlena sings “Easy,” Jacob reaches for August’s gun. And what’s memorable – sublime – about this moment is the way the horse is portrayed — partly by puppetry, partly by a silk ribbon, and consummately by an extraordinary aerialist named Antoine Boissereau, who performs a ballet in mid-air, swirling and twirling with the silk. It’s not just technically impressive; not just beautiful; it’s, somehow, deeply moving. 

Water for Elephants
Imperial Theater
Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes with one 20-minute intermission.
Tickets: $50 – $199.
Written by Rick Elice based on the novel by Sara Gruen
Score by PigPen Theater Compny
Directed by Jessica Stone
Circus design by Shana Carroll, choreography by Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll, scenic design by Takeshi Kata, costume design by David Israel Reynoso, lighting design by Bradley King,sound design by Walter Trarbach, projections by David Bengali, hair & makeup design by Campbell Young Associates,, puppetry design by Ray Wetmore & JR Goodman and Camille Labarre 
music supervision and arrangements by Mary-Mitchell Campbell and Benedict Braxton-Smith orchestrations by Daryl Waters, Benedict Braxton-Smith and August Eriksmoen, music direction by Elizabeth Doran, fight direction by Cha Ramos 
Cast: Grant Gustin as Jacob Jankowski, Isabelle McCalla as Marlena and June, Gregg Edelman as Mr Jankowski, Paul Alexander Nolan as August and Charlie, Stan Brown as Camel, Joe De Paul as Walter,Sara Gettelfinger, Wade McCollum as Wade, Brandon Block, Antoine Boissereau, Rachael Boyd, Paul Castree, Ken Wulf Clark, Taylor Colleton, Gabriel Olivera de PaulaCosta, Isabella Luisa Diaz, Samantha Gershman, Keaton Hentoff-Killian, Nicolas Jelmoni, Caroline Kane,Harley Ross Beckwith McLeish, Michael Mendez, Samuel Renaud, Marissa Rosen, Alexandra Gaelle Royer, Asa Somers, Charles South, Sean Stack, Matthew Varvar and Michelle West.