Ruth Leon’s New York Pocket Theater Reviews

The Outsiders – Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

Two gangs, teenage boys with too much testosterone and not enough sense. Two groups of kids with nothing better to do than hate each other. Sound familiar? Of course, it’s West Side Story. Actually, no, it’s not. It’s The Outsiders, a new musical with enough parallels to that great show that its antecedents are not in question.

Scene by scene, The Outsiders pays homage to the Jets and the Sharks except that here they’re the Greasers and the Socs (short for socialites) and their rumbles are right in line with what Jerome Robbins might have choreographed if he were still with us and fifty years younger.

A stunning cast of unknown young performers – three-fers, in the jargon, meaning that they can all sing, dance and act – act out their grievances, which mainly amount to the distance between the haves and have-nots in song, dance, and angst. The songs by Jamestown Revival spell out their attempts to navigate their world but in fact the choreography from brothers Rick and Jeff Kuperman is what gives shape to the story.

The Outsiders is an adaptation of a wildly successful young adult novel by a teenager, S.E. Hinton, which was made into a film by Frances Ford Coppola. Nearly everyone in the theatre had either read the book or seen the movie. Except me. How closely The Outsiders:The Musical cleaves to the original I can’t tell but I was glad to have come to this terrific evening in the theatre with no preconceptions.

Water For Elephants – Imperial Theatre

This is part musical, part circus, and wholly fabulous. What an exciting evening in the theatre this is. A ‘book-end’ show, which starts with an old man remembering his days in a travelling circus, turns into the story of circus people, animals, and a time only dimly remembered when the circus came to every town. How this particular circus prospered and finally died is the story he tells. Leading the cast is Gregg Edelman, a Broadway musicals stalwart, and Broadway newcomer Grant Gustin as his younger self.

The prize performer is an adorable gigantic puppet elephant called Rosie and her trainer and biggest fan, Marlena, who happens to be married to the circus’s violent owner, Augie.

What makes Water For Elephants different from the run of the mill musical is the integration of the story and the circus without short-changing either. It’s hard to tell where the feats of acrobats, jugglers, animal trainers and aerialists merge with the actors, singers and dancers.

This show has good songs which drive the plot forward by Pigpen Theatre Company, sung with charm by an excellent mixed cast of circus performers and actors and fast-moving choreography by Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll. But the greatest plaudits go to the director, Jessica Stone, who pulls the whole complicated agglomeration of moving parts together into a highly entertaining show which works for the many children in the audience as well as the thinking, hungry adults who love a good musical.