Very few dance numbers could compare to the life these performers brought to the first act.  The show also brought a dynamic group of young, new actors to the stage who were clearly having the time of their life up on stage and that became infectious for the audience to watch and celebrate. It really was a festival happening on stage.  The choice of suggesting the circus and suggesting the animals and events of the circus was perfect to allow our imagination to fill in the details and led to a kind of theatrical magic on the stage.  Less certainly became more in this case.

I was going to give the show a 5 out of 5 rating at intermission but then Act 2 came and the show turned to focus on a forbidden love affair with an abusive husband and the musical became like so many other musicals that it lost its uniqueness and circus magic.  I felt like I had seen Act 2 many times over.  Act 2 was also a bit of a disappointment to me because the big circus acts were all a part of Act 1.  They didn’t save any big acts for the last half of the show.  I really was expecting the musical to end with the the circus performance to end all circus performances – – but, alas, no.  They didn’t save the best for last.

I also take exception to the puppet of the elephant.  All of the other circus animals were such imaginative animals combining human bodies with suggestions of the animals physicalities – but for the elephant they did a full rendering of a rather life-size elephant that ambled across stage complete with blinking eye lids.  It just seemed more goofy than magical or bigger than life.  I wanted it to be more of a mystery – more suggested then realized.  I wanted it to be more like the horse that was captured partially as an actor flown in silks above the stage.

The acting and singing of the show were good but nothing exceptional.  I just wanted more of what made this show so unique and so exceptional – so “the greatest show on earth.”