Circus at Crossroads: Say Goodby to One Dreary Decade, But Don’t Put Your Dreams Away -- Not Yet

Facing 2020 feels more like facing a  new century.  And may it be new -- and better.  Blame it on my having lived through too much disappearing circus history in the last ten years —  or did I inherit this feeling the moment Kenneth Feld announced that he was shutting down Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey for good?

So many closings give me pause, and you?, to wonder if there is to be a future for what is now more frequently being called  “traditional circus.” I merely call it, pardon me, circus.  Is South Pacific, a tradition musical?  Gone With The Wind, a traditional movie?

Those two words, I am feeling,  may mark a condescending dismissal by a class of people, feminist driven it would appear,  who inwardly despise what circus has meant to the masses.  And so they hold a patronizing stance, while waiting for the last dog to leave the tent, the last scary clown to renounce his greasepaint and join Old Clowns Anonymous.  Waiting and ready, honing their acro-centric skills in classrooms and warehouses, municipal centers and small stages, to make their case as the only option left, and therefore, theoretically, more marketable to the public at large. Indeed, their day may be upon us.  Read the reviews in Circus Talk, and behold.  

The traumatic fold, two years ago,  of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey opened wider the gates for “new circus”advocates to assume a greater,  more believable force.  In fact, I think it is far more honest to call themselves  “new circus”  and let “circus” alone stand.  Drop the“traditional.”

Some new circus enthusiasts proclaim to be witnessing a “renaissance” of what they call “circus arts.” This may be so, but it is not the same as a renaissance of circus, period.  Need I even try explaining why?

Such troupes as  ambitiously creative Five Fingers got in on the ground floor, and are finding some success, albeit with funding, before audiences who patronize theatre and ballet. To their credit they do not hang “circus” on their moniker, but, to be sure and safe, talk it up aplenty, obviously to draw in the kind of a ticket buyer who  might like some circus acts but not the circus.  You are unlikely to see TV promo videos from these troupes (including  Cirque du Soleil)  pushing narrative elements:  Gripping cathartic human drama!  Spectacular soliloquies!  Spine tingling character confrontations!  Virtually all new circus videos push Circus.  So there.

Currently for me, the most interesting thing to observe is how this will all play out. To wonder if, out there somewhere lurks a showman yet to surface who can make circus thrive again.  More likely, the ageless delight may yet rebound, come a day imagined long in the future,  when cultural shifts favor the public’s re-embracement of circus’s  defining staples.  Americans may then again accept circus based on a new, more trusting pact between themselves and the owner-producers — a pact more open and transparent where animals may once again be welcome in the tent.  One need only look to the ways of trainer Thomas Chipperfield in England for clues to how such a day may come about.

Impossible to imagine so magical, instructive and inspiring an enterprise as animal training being outlawed forever.

In recent times,  a segment of the young clamor to hear new pop recordings on vinyl, as in LP.   Down at Issues on Piedmont Avenue, near to where I live, a surprising show of younger people flock to the shelves, to consider a dazzling array of books and magazines from far and wide. Can you spell p a p e r?

So, took the circus? 

Circus may be down, but don’t count ten yet.  

To quote Douglas McPherson from London: “Let’s hope these twenties roar like the previous ones!”

Thomas Chipperfield

circa 10.19.19