“Water for Elephants” now playing at Pantages

Broadway runs away to the circus in this delightful musical adaptation of Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel, with gasp-inducing acrobatics and puppet magic to rival The Lion King. The songs, interestingly enough, are credited not to one composer but are created by the PigPen Theater Co. ensemble. It’s a shame that they are mostly forgettable, but serviceable as a Depression-era folk soundtrack for the real magic, which includes high-flying aerial acts and at least three different elephant trunk puppets (one of which glows!). The center of the production is a joy at the possibility of the human body and human imagination.

It’s a magical show, and you should go.

Mr. Jankowski (Robert Tully – a real-life retired circus ringmaster!) has wandered off from his assisted living facility to an unnamed circus, where he  becomes the narrator of a series of flashbacks of his youth working at the Benzini Brothers’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth — infamous for one of the greatest (fictional) disasters in circus history.

Young Jankowski (Zachary Keller) has tragically lost his parents and has nothing to lose, so in true Depression-era fashion he jumps a train, only to learn that it’s a traveling (and struggling) circus. When circus-owner August (Connor Sullivan) discovers Jankowski was a veterinarian student (well, almost – we learn he never completed his studies) August enlists the young man as his circus vet, setting up an epic showdown as the almost-doctor falls for Marlena (Helen Krushinski), the animal-riding showgirl and August’s wife. Oh. And they get an elephant. Obviously.

For a show that seldom lets five minutes pass without a thrilling backflip or aerial stunt, at the core of the story is grief. We track a young man’s nihilistic search for a sense of belonging following his parents’ death, as well as an old man’s faltering quest to find meaning in his twilight years. Themes addressed include ‘what is home?’ and ‘what can it mean to belong?’

I especially appreciate that the show doesn’t shy away from entering a poetic register, as when a song to an injured horse transforms into an aerial number with a circus performer interpreting the horse’s inner life while spinning 50 feet in the air.

Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. But it’s also very moving.

The acrobats spend the production leaping around in tights, sometimes with hammers, singing soulfully. The vocals by carnies Camel (Javier Garcia) and  Wade (Grant Huneycutt) in particular just about steal the show. The music may be forgettable, but the cast delivers it spectacularly. There’s a ‘vanishing white working class’ pageantry to the whole affair, which compels me me think about musicals as the high camp at the heart of Americana. The modern Broadway-style musical is a distinctly American art form, and this period musical gets about as political as its source material, firmly grounded in a Depression-era critique of capitalism and male cruelty counterbalanced by a belief in the possibility of decent people making a difference.

In any adaptation, I always ask: did this need to be onstage? Did it need to be a musical? The real strength of this work is how it answers those questions with its stagecraft, from just a hint of an animal limb in puppet form, encouraging us to imagine the stage being filled with beasts, to the lyrical breaks displaying feats of the human body and comedic circus bits. The show takes full advantage of its theatricality, and the creatives (far too many to name!) behind the circus stunts and elaborate puppetry deserve all the flowers.

Water for Elephants runs September 8–27, 2026 at the Pantages Theatre, Los Angeles.

Purchase tickets here.