onstagepittsburgh.com: The live show takes its inspiration from the 2006 novel by Sara Gruen, in which an elderly man reflects on finding love, passion and a new home when, as a young man who has lost everything in 1931, he hops a train with the crew of a traveling circus. Seen through the eyes of his older self, Jacob’s adventure becomes “a poignant reminder that if you choose the ride, life can begin again at any age.”
I have been dying to see this show for some time, and thankfully that wait is coming to an end with this show coming here in Pittsburgh. I’m sure the load in process for this show presents a lot of challenges, making each theater safe for acrobatics and circus stunts has got to be a pretty big task. I like how analog this show seems to be. There's something fun about real sets and puppets that aren't just projections, it adds a level of texture to any show that I personally don’t think projections and media design are capable of replicating. I also really like the design choice to make the animal puppets from scraps of the circus, that gives such an interesting layer to the fact that it's a story being retold. It is always interesting to see something get several different adaptations, and having not seen the movie or the play, I have to assume that water for elephants has a better impact as a live stage play. I just don't think anything can beat getting to see live acrobatics.
ReplyDeleteI have been wanting to see this show since it was on Broadway, and I am so excited to be seeing it in a week or so. Honestly, all I really knew about this show was that it was set in the 30s and had a circus vibe along with a lot of theatrical elements. And you can't forget about the elephant. From the sounds of it, it seems like it is going to be like the play Elephant's Graveyard by George Brant, but that may simply be because of the circus and elephant elements of both shows. I am really intrigued to see the acrobats, flips, and tricks that occur during the show. I also did not know there was puppetry in this show, and I am excited to see that, simply for the fact that puppetry is such a sacred thing in theatre, it seems, because of how it works for the needs of the show, along with design aspects. Overall, I am just really excited to see what the show entails and glad I read this article to get a little bit more knowledge on the context of the story.
ReplyDeleteI am so sad I didn’t look more into this show when the option for discounted tickets in Pittsburgh came out. I kinda just passed by it as something I had not heard of before, but now literally everything on my feed is showing the beautiful puppets. This is a major lesson for future me to have my first google search be “does this show have cool puppets.” I really love how the puppetry team played into the materiality of fabric. In that first image of the elephant, the use of different patterns and the natural folding of the fabric really looks like the loose skin of an elephant. I remember watching this pottery competition show, where one of the judges broke down in tears at this one contestant’s sculpture. He had built this landscape by creating blocks of clay and then tearing at them to reveal the uneven nature of clay. She had said it embraced all that clay is and explored the textures that most artists try to cover up. The folding of the fabric in the puppet reminds me of this same way of creating that relies on the material and its “flaws” to create a vision.
ReplyDeleteThis article is a little trite and makes it seem like the author just discovered live performance, but I digress. Some of their ideas are interesting, and you can read into their discussion of the confluence of Theater and Circus (and puppets! Wow!) in a number of ways. I think there’s something to be said about combining art forms, especially very similar ones like live theater and the circus, in a similar way to how Phantom of the Opera combines musical theater and opera. Water for Elephants is a good, if not groundbreaking show. When I saw it, I thought to myself about how nothing they were doing on stage couldn’t be accomplished in a high-level high school theater program, something which is even clearer now that theatrical rites for the show are available.The article briefly mentions the load in process for the show, which I’m sure is very involved. Not every theater on the tour can have the hardware and rigging necessary to install vertical circus elements, something I’m sure the crew have to deal with constantly. I am also appreciative of the design of the puppets including “what you might find in a circus” but I don’t think that’s anything to write home about. I like this show, and I really like PigPen Theater company but I think we should be realistic about these things.
ReplyDeleteI was lucky to see “Water for Elephants” on Broadway and it was one of my favorite productions I have ever seen. As a kid, the book was also one of my favorites. The circus acts and elements were incredibly impressive in the live production. They really embraced the theatricality of puppetry in a way that allowed the audience to suspend their disbelief and fall in love with these animals while not needing to have the most realistic puppets. I worked on a show called “Vanishing Elephant” that had similar elephant puppets but ones that were a little more realistic which worked very well for that production. I appreciate how each show uses puppets that work for them. Another thing I appreciated about the production, “Water for Elephants”, is that it just looked like everyone on stage was having fun and playing. Those are my favorite productions, because I feel like you can often tell when the ensemble is actually having fun vs just acting.
ReplyDeleteI am seeing Water for Elephants next week and after the article I just read I have never been more excited to see a show. Reading this make me really happy because often times we don’t see people appreciating puppets and puppetry. Puppet arts is usually one of those things that people either find really creepy or completely disregard, with the occasional fringe person who is obsessed in a weird way I really like puppets. I think they tell a story really well, especially in something like this, in which there are lots of animals since circus and I think but the show is beautiful and everyone who has seen it has said incredible things. I am conflicted about the idea that this show is available to highschoolers because nobody has the budget to do what this show has done. However, this does give the show a chance to become more accessible
ReplyDeleteI remember reading this book in school and wow what a moving piece it was. Despite my general qualms about literature being misrepresented when adapted into film and musicals, this stage version with puppets seems to be more of a live representation of the book. Given my own cultural background, I have always held partiality to puppets and their emotional expression. For me, various puppets are not only props and set pieces, but actors in the story as well. Puppets such as these just bring some sort of majesticness and grace to a production, giving it a different vibe (not in a better or worse way) than other productions. Another example of this is The Lion King. The puppets are intentionally visibly operated by the actors, creating a blended performance. It is interesting to see how different puppets from different regions of the world are constructed, and the materials that are used to do so. I am excited to see what Broadway production brings puppets back to the stage.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much to be said about the beautiful and theatrical production that is water for elephants, but one thing that I thought really stood out to me from this particular article was the repeated emphasis on the fact this is not a musical based on the 2011 movie water for elephants but rather the book water for elephants. I think that often times when books get adapted into movies, people become more aware of the movie rather than the book. Personally I had no idea water for elephants was even a book or a movie, but I can understand why audiences may have thought the musical would be based off the movie. Instead its it’s own adaptation of the book, similar to how the movie is. In the age of adaptations, I think stage adaptations that come from books rather than movies are personally more appealing than ones made from movies, because you have so much more freedom for interpretation than you do with a movie, because audiences expect it to be a certain way.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes Water for Elephants one of my favorite shows is how it feels so raw and like natural theater, where I feel there aren’t these high-tech robots with these controls, and these out of reach theater practices that no one could replicate without a huge budget. This show creates a fantastic story using basic techniques like a sheet and a shadow of an elephant instead of having a huge robot for an elephant. They put up a sheet and have a puppet-like projection, or maybe to create the shadow of the elephant, and it is so beautiful, and it feels so real and so much like the theater that I grew up watching. This is such a beautiful story, and I love this show so much because it feels so real and so connected to the basics of theater, and I think the show means a lot to people who grew up in the theater industry. I'm so excited to see the show this weekend, as my friend loves puppies in the theater, and I cannot wait for them to witness it, and I wanna hear all about what they have to say and their opinions of the puppets used in the show.
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