NEW YORK — Initially, you don’t see a whole elephant in the Broadway musical “Water for Elephants.” It’s more like a tease. First comes a pair of huge ears. Then a chest. And then the legs.
The execution is by director Jessica Stone, who wanted to make it even more special for the audience when they finally get to see the big reveal at the end of Act 1. She thought it had to be inspiring, tender and with the spirit of an elephant.
“People were talking about how emotional they were when they finally saw her in full and I was like, ‘OK, I think it’s going to be okay,’” says Stone.
It’s been more than fine for Stone, whose show has earned seven Tony Award nominations, including one for best new musical and one for his heroic efforts to perfectly create a major Broadway musical with circus elements.
Stone knits puppets and vaudeville acts, songs and somersaults, and merges two groups of people who might not have shared the same lunch table in high school—the jocks and the theater geeks.
“It’s a very humble, disciplined, hard-working and loving cast,” she says. “I use this metaphor too much, but it couldn’t be truer: literally and figuratively, we reach out our arms and hold each other.”
The show — adapted from Sara Gruen’s popular 2006 historical novel and featuring music by the band PigPen Theater Co. — follows a love triangle in a traveling circus during the Depression.
The New York Times called it “a stunning, emotional production that “leads with movement, eye candy and wonder.” Variety praised that Stone brought “everything under one spectacular tent, without forgetting her human – and animal – hearts.”
Their skill is on display with the first big song – “The Road Don’t Make You Young” – a lively nine-minute number that involves 23 performers, singing, dancing and spinning. He leans on circus designer Shana Carroll, who co-choreographs with Jesse Robb, both of whom also earned Tony nods.
The act begins with a circus train arriving in town, and the audience meets each of the characters as they get off and set up a tent. Soon we’re in the middle of a circus act, with acrobats flying through the air, twisting on ropes and poles.
This took two years to develop, and Stone calls it “the gateway to the rest of the show.” She credits the producers for giving her team time to create it and figuring out how to marry Broadway timing with the circus.
“You actually have to have a little wiggle room for the circus, because you don’t fly through the air exactly the same way every time,” she says. “So everywhere in the show and in the act, there’s always a little bit of wiggle room. We had to build it for safety.”
Rick Elice, the playwright of “Jersey Boys” and “Peter and the Starcatcher” who earned a Tony nomination for “Water for Elephants,” said he was intrigued when Stone auditioned as director and spoke his mind even about elements that seemed non-negotiable. , as your initial framing device.
“She is brilliant. She’s funny. She is fully prepared. She’s fast. She’s someone you love to have lunch with because you laugh a lot and exchange ideas, which for me makes for a great lunch,” he says.
“Water for Elephants,” depicted as an elderly former circus worker looking back tenderly, joins a number of recent memory plays on Broadway such as “Mother Play,” “The Notebook,” “A Beautiful Noise ” and “Harmony”.
“It’s not like we all walk into a room and say, ‘You know what? 2024 will be the season of memories,” she says with a laugh. She thinks it’s a byproduct of the pandemic.
“Memory plays are about looking back at your life and determining whether or not you did it right, and whether or not you’re still doing it right,” she says.
This became the key to marrying circus elements in “Water for Elephants” – they are hazy memories for the main character, fragmented and not fully formed.
“I really didn’t want people to arbitrarily fall into backward somersaults for no reason. It had to really honor their most important memories,” says Stone.
“Once you realize you’re looking through that prism, you really don’t want to see a literal animal. Go to the zoo if you want to see a literal animal. What you want to see is a fragment.”
Thus, a lion is presented as just a head and jaw and a horse in pain is shown by a mask on an actor’s lap, while French artist Antoine Boissereau dangles elegantly high on a white cloth, the animal’s spirit floating among the life and death.
Stone was an actor on and off Broadway, in television and film, for decades before moving into directing. Previously, she received a Tony nomination for directing the Tony-winning Broadway musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” which beautifully captured sadness with humor.
“That dichotomy is what’s most interesting to me – that you can feel great pain and yet something can actually make you laugh in that moment. That’s something I look for when I tell stories.”
Elice says Stone’s experience as an actress gives her the ability to know how to talk to actors, comparing her favorably to the late, great Mike Nichols, which says a lot.
“I’ve never seen anyone better than Nichols talking to actors. She just has a gift for being able to cut through a lot of nonsense and say exactly the right thing to get a great performance.”
Stone is part of a brotherhood of directors that crossed a barrier on Broadway this year: seven women competed for the 10 nomination spots for directing musicals and plays. Only 10 women have achieved the title of director.
Stone, who is married to veteran Broadway actor Christopher Fitzgerald, celebrated her nomination in a very New York way: she got a toasted bagel with cream cheese and a manicure.
This is in keeping with a director who likes to mix something profound with something ordinary. “You can be nominated for an award and just want a bagel,” she says, laughing.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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