WATER FOR ELEPHANTS Opening Night Critics' Reviews

I’m expecting a lot of circus wordplay.

I'm going to be optimistic here based on recent comments that the show has improved, and I'm sure it improved since I saw it in Atlanta.

Did they like it?

0 positive

70% mixed

30% negative

I would anticipate a lot of mixed leaning toward negative. The show is fine but never takes off. The book and score are just kind of mid/safe.

I fear they are going to be vicious. The day I saw it both Jesse Green and Elizabeth V were in the audience.

The show isn't great - but it isn't awful. I hope the critics are kind.....all the new musicals need all the help they can get selling tickets.

I think they will be mostly mixed (though I didn't except some of the savagery in The Notebook reviews so who really knows).

It felt to me like the show is straddling two worlds: it wants to be both a homespun, stripped down affair (much like a traditional Pig Pen show) AND a lavish, energetic Broadway spectacle. I sort of wish they had just pursued one of those avenues as it doesnt always marry these two elements successfully. The two biggest issues imo: Gustin's main character desperately needs an earlier establishing moment to lure the audience in (as of now, it doesn't really happen until 3/4 of the way through act 1) and I think it needs a more exciting opening number (I felt the show took too long to really settle into its groove). I definitely enjoyed the show and am glad I saw it. But I expect it to get "B" grade reviews: entertaining but with some flaws.

I think the circus and stagecraft/puppetry will be praised. Paul Alexander Nolan and Gregg Edelman will likely get raves, while Gustin and McCalla will probably receive nice notices for their voices with caveats that the script doesn't flesh out their characters as much as it could. (Or the critics will pull a Notebook and just fully do their own thing haha).

theatretenor2 said: "Is the show at 7 or 8 tonight?"

6:30pm curtain.

At 9pm for Adam Feldman.

So, it's Rex Reed, who hates most things and who loved Beanie in Funny Girl, so take what you will from it:

Observer: ‘Water for Elephants’ Theater Review: “I’ve Never Hated Any Show More”

https://observer.com/2024/03/water-for-elephants-theater-review-the-worst-broadway-show-ever/

"After suffering through the new Broadway musical The Notebook, I thought I had seen the worst of what the 2024 season would bring. I was wrong. I had not seen Water for Elephants yet. Now I have. It can’t get any deadlier than this."

Adeliciaboy said: "Greetings fellow opening night review monitors. If there is any justice left in the Broadway world around Times Square W4E should be declared a train wreck and dispatched to whatever graveyard is reserved for expensive theatrical disasters. Rumors began circulating in the hours before opening that massive work had been done to improve the show. I was at the first preview and only a miracle could have made that show much more than a boring mediocrity. And that's the last thing Broadway needs at this juncture. That said, what's left of the critics community has been known to be blatantly political at times and give a pass to some blatantly undeserving shows. I would not at all be surprised if critics were far kinder to this show than it deserves. but we shall see."

Yikes. Maybe you’re right. Maybe not. But that is a really vicious and probably unnecessary review on a thread called Opening Night Critics Reviews.

"Based on another novel that has outlived its time and now sits gathering dust on the shelves of libraries on the verge of extinction..."

This is a gross but hysterically un-self aware statement for an 85 year-old theatre critic to make.

4 stars/recommended from TimeOut:

"Step right up, come one, come all, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up to the greatest—well, okay, not the greatest show on Broadway, but a dang fine show nonetheless."

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/water-for-elephants-broadway-musical-review-circus

"Where Water for Elephants really soars, though, is in the real-life physical talents on display. Carroll shares choreography credit with Jesse Robb, and they seamlessly integrate circus artistry into the show’s other movement. Members of the ensemble perform impressive aerial acts on ropes, silks and straps, and show off a dazzling variety of circus acts: acrobatics, tumbling, balancing, juggling, Cyr Wheel. Although the principal actors sing well and flesh out their roles commendably—McCalla is particularly good in her second-act decision song, “What Do You Do?”—they are effectively the sideshow here. The main attraction is the pull of the circus itself. "

4 stars and 3 stars from NY Stage Review:

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS: A THRILLING THROWBACK TO THE HEYDAY OF THE BIG TOP

By Sandy MacDonald

★★★★☆ This “circus musical” occupies an impressively big tent, probing the power dynamics that affect the human animal.

https://nystagereview.com/2024/03/21/water-for-elephants-a-thrilling-throwback-to-the-heyday-of-the-big-top/



WATER FOR ELEPHANTS: HEAVY LIFTING FOR A MUSICAL

By Frank Scheck

★★★☆☆ Acrobatics and puppetry abound in this musical adaptation of the best-selling novel about a love triangle that takes place in a Depression-era traveling circus.

https://nystagereview.com/2024/03/21/water-for-elephants-heavy-lifting-for-a-musical/