Jessica Stone (‘Water for Elephants’ director) on fusing musical theatre and circus: ‘Once you’re dealing with memory, it doesn’t have to be literal’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Director Jessica Stone knew that her stage adaptation of “Water for Elephants” needed to have its own distinct voice given that audiences already experienced the 2006 novel and a 2011 film. “My way in was this idea of this protagonist at two different times in his life, making a choice, having just recently lost everything,” explains the director. “How do you pivot? How do you choose who you are when you lose everything?” In the musical, which opened at the Imperial Theatre on March 21, Stone uses memory as a tool to enhance the theatricality of the story. Watch the exclusive video interview above.
“Water for Elephants” focuses on the elderly Jacob Jankowski (Gregg Edelman), who wanders from his nursing home to a traveling circus. Walking among the various animals and performers whisks his mind back in time, when his younger self (Grant Gustin) ran away with a circus. Ostensibly, Jacob served as the veterinarian for the various animals, but in reality he fell in love with the equestrian performer Marlena (Isabelle McCalla). The feeling between this pair create a simmering tension with Marlena’s husband, the controlling ringmaster August (Paul Alexander Nolan).
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“Once you’re dealing with memory, it doesn’t have to be literal, it doesn’t have to be linear,” remarks Stone on the power of her framing device. “You remember what you feel or what you felt, and the rest of it is blurrier. So when Jacob joined the circus…did someone actually peel off into a cartwheel as he was walking by? Probably not. But that’s what it felt like when he joined that day when he fell in love,” she explains. “What he remembers is feeling the utter awe and skill of this woman that he fell in love with and her ability to tame a horse.”
There are indeed plenty of perfectly executed cartwheels on stage, but that only taps the surface of the impressive acrobatic feats on display. “Water for Elephants” fuses traditional musical theater storytelling with astounding circus acts and puppetry performances. It’s quite the about-face for Stone, who is perhaps best known to audiences for her Tony-nominated directorial efforts for the intimate 2023 Best Musical winner “Kimberly Akimbo.” “I never actually imagined that I would be offered the job,” she admits, “I just thought, well, this is a good experience for me to sort of think this way and brainstorm.” But she is thankful that the producers took a chance and handed her the reins.
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The physical production feels extravagant: aerialists contrast and twirl overheard, while actors croon to impressive animal puppets down on earth. Yet “Water for Elephants” still possesses an intimate, stripped-down quality. “I never really thought of it as a big giant show. I just thought of it as many different layers that needed to be tackled,” reveals Stone. For instance, the circus’ train cars are represented by scaffolding and the titular elephant is first introduced via shadow puppetry. Given the “memory play” format, Stone states that “having something really literal didn’t feel useful.” Instead, she and her team would experiment with unique, theatrical elements until the visuals on stage matched the emotional pitch of a scene. “I didn’t start out with the answers,” admits Stone, “It was just knowing emotionally and narratively what needed to happen in the moment and what were our tools at our disposal.”
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