Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Leave your troubles outside the tent, because tonight, under this Big Top, you’ll be transported to a world of breathtaking aerialists, athletic acrobats, wild beasts in need of taming, and a love affair that defies all odds. Welcome to the world of the Benzini Bros. traveling circus and get ready for a tale that explores what happens beyond the center ring when a grieving young man doesn’t run off to join the circus, but just jumps on the right train that transports one.
The Benzini Bros. Circus has set up tent for one week only at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore to kick off their hit-packed 2025-26 season. It may be set in the Depression Era Midwest, but this visually captivating spectacle becomes a timeless story for the ages under the guidance of Director Jessica Stone and Choreographers Jesse Robb and “Circus Designer” Shana Carroll, who create a thrilling spectacle of death defying acts that fills every inch of the stage in all three dimensions.
Based on Sara Gruen’s acclaimed novel, adapted for stage by Rick Elice (Jersey Boys, The Cher Show, Smash) with music by Pigpen Theatre Co. (The Old Man and the Old Moon, The Tale of Despereaux) adheres moderately faithfully to Gruen’s book. The major differences are Stone, a protégée of theatrical legend Tommy Tune, has spectacularly moved the circus, which served as the background for Gruen’s love story, down front directly in the center ring with visual feats of athleticism and daring from a troupe of performers from various international circuses proficient in balancing acts, aerialist acts, and enough tumbles, gymnastics, and throws to fill a fourth ring at Ringling Bros. In and around these exhilarating acts of daring, the gentle story of an elicit love affair and perhaps even larger love for the undercared for animals unfold.
Our story opens with Mr. Jankowski (Robert Tully), an elderly resident from a local retirement home, who has stolen away for a day to visit the traveling O’Brien’s One Ring Circus before it leaves town. There, he shares with the owner and his star performer June his experiences of his youth when he was a member of the Benzini Bros. Three Ring Circus, where his veterinary skills (he graduated school but was sidetracked when his parents were killed in a car accident before he could take his licensing boards) lands him a job taking care of the borderline abused circus animals. His first patient is horse Silver Star, the star act suffering from a weak hoof. While caring for Silver Star, young Jacob Jankowski (Zachary Keller) meets the equine’s costar and trainer Marlena (Helen Krushinski, doubling as June), who happens to be the wife of the nefarious ringmaster, August (Connor Sullivan, who also plays O’Brien). Throughout the evening, we see death defying acts performed not only by a plethora of circus performers, but by Jacob, Marlene, and several other roustabouts who cross the notorious August.
Tully (who ironically in a former life was an actual ringmaster for Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus), is an engaging narrator who weaves in and out of shadows of the tale he spins like an illusionist in the side ring.
Keller as his 20-something counter part is a solid leading man in his national tour debut. With matinee idol looks and a 24 karat gold voice, he balances the show on his broad shoulders with the ease in any circus acrobat.
Krushinski is not only a worthy love interest with a beautiful voice, she has a masterful chemistry with the animals (intricate life-sized puppets designed by Ray Wetmore &JR Goodman and Camille LaBarre) and operated by the additionally talented ensemble). Her emotional investment helps bring the animals to life. It is of note, as the only lead character who is technically a performer, she is required to attempt some dicey aerial acrobatics, which she is totally game for and executes beautifully.
Sullivan (Chicago national tour) is a worthy villain who serves as the antagonist of the piece to…just about everybody. He is simultaneously neglectful and controlling with his wife, threatening to Jacob, abusive to the animals, and downright criminal with his employees. Yet when he dons his red sequined jacket and top hat, on stage in the center ring he is magnificent and commanding, a flawless façade for the evil that lurks behind his bad boy smirk.
The featured circus performers who add color and flair to the tale include Ruby Gibbs as Barabara (of “Barbara and her Bali Broads”, a former sideshow carny dance act who was moved to the three rings for legitimacy to keep the cops out), Tyler West as Walter, the clown whose smile is only for the audience, and Javier Garcia and Grant Huneycutt as Camel and Wade, roustabouts who cower to the bidding of August only as long as they’re useful to him.
The rest of the company float in and out seamlessly as entertainment in various acrobatic states and all are magnificent, showing their prowess developed through a years in a variety of international circuses. Of special note are Fran Alvarez Jara (a Spanish acrobat and Olympic weight lifter) and Sam Kellar-Long (a Canadian graduate of Montreal’s National Circus School), who literally carry the circus acts on their impressively sculpted shoulders, balancing one to three fellow performers in various configurations of vertical and three dimensional shoulder stands. The segments need to be seen to be believed in the theatrical milieu.
Scenic Designer Takeshi Kaha (assisted by Projection Designer David Bengali) makes the action flow as fluidly as the Ringling Bros. acts between the rings. Massive scaffolding units double as the trains that transport the band between locales, and the Big Top is an impressive backdrop that doesn’t get lost behind the breathtaking gymnastics and oversized animals that populate it.
David I. Reynoso’s Costume Designs are a nice mix of behind the scene rehearsal clothes and brilliant sequin and rhinestone encrusted performance wear for the circus within the show.
Bradley King’s dramatic lighting design mixes the dazzling, theatrical lights of the three ring circus with the equally dynamic quieter but no less theatrical lighting for the soap opera unfolding backstage.
The animated stars of the show are as engaging as their human counterparts due to the clever and fascinating puppet designs by Whetmore & Goodman (Stranger Things: The First Shadow, The Queen of Versailles, Cabaret) and LaBarre (Into the Woods, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock) under the mastery of Puppet Director Joshua Holden. An Emmy-nominated puppeteer, designer, and builder for the Jim Henson Company, their movements are fluid and natural, graceful or ferocious as the animal would be in real nature. It is the expertise of this crew who breathe believability and emotional animation into their inanimate extensions and make the animals a lifelike real part of the story.
Elise’s book tells the story, quiet and natural by today’s standards, but when Stone moved the emphasis to the circus performers, the high stakes of the acts eclipse the even higher stakes of Jacob and Marlena’s affair. He would have served them better if he had raised their profile by mimicking the melodrama so prominent in Depression era movies and big scree blockbusters to give them the passion and urgency that is fueling this ill-advised affair, and emphasize what they have at risk should her jealous and vindictive husband find out.
Likewise, Pigpen Theatre Co. has delivered a buoyant score that mixes the roustabouts’ blue grass and the seedier elements’ bump and grined gin joint sounds of the 30s with Big Top music that is reminiscent of Cy Coleman’s magnificent, definitive circus musical Barnum, into a score that is catchy and stirring in all the upbeat moments. The whole score brings a smile to my face. But again, where they have fallen short is their lack of one big, sweeping love ballad for their star-crossed lovers as musicals of the golden era were always blessed with. The single moment missing from the show is a soaring profession of love like “Only Make Believe” from Show Boat, “I Have Dreamed” from the King & I, or “There But for You Go I” from Brigadoon. When the emotional investment in the scene stealing circus acts overshadows your leading love story, fix it. But perhaps this art of the Broadway love ballad is a lost one, because they are pretty much absent across the board from all contemporary scores. Ironically, or not, the most intimate love song of the show is “Easy”, in which Marlena sings to her ailing equine costar. The puppets and the circus folks get better moments than the leads, which is unfair to the actors doing such fantastic work.
But overall, Director Jessica Stone, a protégée of the legendary theatrical impresario Tommy Tune, shows well the craft she has obviously learned from him—how to stylize a show and utilize unconventional methods to enhance your story telling in the most memorable way. She weaves a breathtaking canopy of 360 degree sumptuousness around Gruen’s beloved characters. Her visions garnered well-deserved Tony Nominations for both her and the show.
Stone’s visionary choices (duplicated here by Tour Director Ryan Emmons) benefit exponentially from her choice of choreographers as collaborators. Jesse Robb (Miss Saigon, Les Miserables globally, and Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity) and Shana Carroll (Cirque du Soleil’s Crystal, Paramour, and Iris, Queen of the Night, and the Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony), a veteran of both Cirque du Soleil and Canada’s Les 7 Doits de la Main (the creative team behind the 2013 Pippin revival that used the circus theme as a large part of rectifying the deliberate oddities of Bob Fosse’s contribution to the story of the show, and help blend the discrepancies between the sublime classic score and his weird, overly artsy book) to ultimately create a visually stunning, multi-sensory thrill ride through a story that envelopes all the levels and aspects of circus life. None of the creatives won Tonys for this work, but Robb and Carroll were awarded the prestigious Chita Rivera Award for their masterful efforts.
So, ladies and gentlemen, in the grand finale as the curtain falls on this spectacular review, you’ll leave with a new insight and appreciation of life under the Big Top and the grit and glamour of a life in the Circus. As that other ringmaster P.T Barnum tells us in that other Circus musical (which, after the success of this and The Greatest Showman is way overdue for a revival), “There is a sucker born every minute.” So don’t be the one who misses this main event to launch a new and exhilarating season at the Hippodrome. Run away and join the circus like you wanted to when you were a kid—before the Big Top picks up and moves to the next town.
Photos courtesy of Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman
The show runs 2 hours and 30 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.
Water for Elephants runs through October 4, 2025, at the Hippodrome Theatre in the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center at 12 N. Eutaw Street. For tickets call the box office at 410.752.7444. or purchase them online