WAITING FOR GODOT IN A PUP TENT? ... Celebrating Portable Amusements --- Carnie layouts to Irish Theater Fit-ups ...

              Laying down The Whip, at the fairgrounds in Santa Rosa.  

In my compulsively creative boyhood, the discovery at the county fairgrounds of how Foley & Burk carnival wagons were spotted and unloaded to form midway attractions utterly fascinated me. Rides went up in  portable sections. Wood frames for games were raised, joined together by open hinges, and covered in canvas.

My pet wagon was a quaint little thing when I first laid eyes on it, parked in front of the fairgrounds entrance.  What was it for? A few comical images and a small scrim I could barely see through posed a mystery.  When the wagon was spotted on the midway, its sides raised to form a two story structure, Thimble Theater appeared at the top. I was taken.  Had. Seduced. With the dark walk-through on the top floor, it would become my all  time favorite carnival amusement. 

Actually, Fun on the Farm, its manufactured name at birth, was trans-fashioned by Foley & Burk to feature comics characters out of the 1930s. Working parts powered animated images of them on the front facades, and within, rotating floor sections that produced the most wonderful grinding sounds. 

Infected with wagon-based zeal, I started out with my very portable red Radio Flyer wagon, a Christmas gift.  Once, I turned it into a covered wagon, another time, a cool aid concession .  And I built the portable frame for a fun house in the front yard, under scorching July heat.  Covered it with old rugs my mother had thrown out.  Shortly thereafter, the fire department paid us a courtesy visit. My most formidable creation was condemned before it could even open!

I can't remember what I was trying to bring off here.

Me with Tippy, and Patches our cat, sister Kathy to the left, brother Dick to the right..

Blame this portable blather on an unexpected article, Hollywood on Wheels, by Douglas McPherson in London, writing for The Stage. The subject is Fit-ups, as they were called in the UK, a tradition dating  back to at least 1839.  In a land of playwright giants (Becket, Synge, Shaw, Wilde, O’Casey)  ironically, there were pitifully few stages  upon which to play  Waiting for Godot in a pup tent?   This lead to Fit–up touring troupes that brought their own flats and drops, and proscenium aches, fitted them  in open spaces,  on village and school hall stages, to keep the show going.  Young actors and writers, toiling in Fit-ups (Harold Pinter, one),  were better prepared, I am supposing, to be less critical of “professional theater” working conditions.

  My puppet shows went on tour, too. At Luther Burbank Elementary, I was asked to present a  show from from classroom to classroom up and down the halls. This called for the fitting-up genius of my.Uncle Teddy, who designed and built for me a portable stage. With my record-player sound man, Ross Begley, we loaded it out on my Radio Flyer, and rolled it to school one morning. We were a big hit! 

In the smallest of wee Irish towns, you could watch a different Shakespeare play almost every night, and on Sundays, be tickled by comedies, like The Importance of Being Ernest. On portable screens, flickering images of Rudolph Valentino and Charlie Chaplin charmed the simple masses. These road shows, about 60 in number at their peak, thrived into thee 1960s.  And then came television.  

 

In recent times, reports McPherson,  Fit Ups are making something of a charming little come back.  He quotes Geoff Gould who “was raised on tales of the fit ups by his mother and father,” throwing up his own company, Blood in the Alley (handball games), sixteen years ago.  Still on the road, they are spreading their brand of gore in halls, pubs, tents and in the open.

My model building, photo above, honors some of my favorite rides.  

Today’s portable amusements may be better engineered and easier to set up.  I’ll take yesterday’s very visible moving parts.  Their sweaty rise over a dry field of grass and weed. The grinding rumble of the shifting floors in the Thimble Theater. Oh, what a fabulous soundtrack.  What a fun house – human hands all the way!

And that’s a fitting wrap

SUNDAY MORNING REPLAY: PBS Under the Big Top: Circus Kings Shine, Barnum Dominates and Darkens Half-Baked, Error-Prone Three-Ring Charmer

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Television Review:  The Circus
PBS/American Experience
4-hour anthology in 2 parts
Twice seen for this review, October, 2018

When I learned that the formidable American Experience was coming out with a documentary on American circus history,  1793 to 1956,  naturally I had high expectations, wondering how they would treat the period through three epochs -- from the one ring show of English horse rider John Rickets, bringing to America the modern circus invented by  Philip Astley, to the three ring spectacles of Barnum and Bailey, and then onto how they were artfully transformed and refined by John Ringling North in 1938.
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Although, in real life,  P.T. Barnum did not enter the picture until 1871, here he enters it from the get-go, fairly dominating the first two hours of The Circus with his bombastic,  perversely amusing ballyhoos, his freaks and fakes, clever humbugs and various exotic animals.   The talking heads who wax lyrical about circus artistry -- the consensus seeming to rise on the word “transcendence” -- do not wax lyrical about anything that Mr. Barnum brought to the tent.  In fact, he was obviously more a sideshow huckster than ever a circus king

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 Barnum on Broadway, at the Museum: Frank Lentini,  above; Jo-Jo, the Dog Faced Boy, below

 

When producer-writer-director Sharon Grimberg finally  gets around to the starting point at Philadelphia in 1793, incredibly, no mention is made of Philip Astley -– an unconscionable insult to the British, who this year are celebrating the 250th anniversary of Astley’s one-ring gift to the world.

Instead, one of the talking heads (name not shown), rhapsodizes over the launch in Philadelphia of a “distinctly American”circus.  Nice try.  Distinctly American lay decades ahead.   The exceptionalism on display at Ricket’s Circus was very British.

Beyond Barnum, whom Grimberg can’t seem to get enough of, she turns her most passionate attention upon a select few big top movers and shakers, telling their compelling stories with a rich array of visual materials at hand.  Among the many nuggets, film footage inside the big top during the 1944 Hartford fire is stunning; a clip of Con Colleano dancing on the low wire is pure gold.

The good news is that Adam Forepaugh receives outstanding coverage.  So do William Coup and Dan Costello, who talked the retired Prince of Humbug into joining them to take out a  new circus, which opened in Brooklyn in 1871, and within a  year, was on rails and appearing under a large tent in two rings.  Not noted is how Barnum simultaneously rented out the use of his magnetic name, two summers in a row, to a  rogue showman, Peggy O’Brien, which gave rivals ad copy ammunition: “Barnum’s Show is Divided!  One Half Here, and The Other There.    Which Are You Going to See?”  The  treachery so disgusted Coup and Costello, that the short-lived partnership was soon history.  Barnum’s New England lobby may wish to skip this one.

Most impressive of all is James A. Bailey, who joined up with Barnum in 1881 to form — distinctly American —  the first three-ring circus.  His genius for big top logistics shines through, especially when. in 1897, Barnum having died six years before, he manages to ship the entire show, tents and all, to Europe,  where he tours it triumphantly for five years to “almost” constantly packed houses. I question that.  Back in the states, now facing a five-brother juggernaut, Bailey’s invincible grip on public favor wanes.  Like a man yet to come bearing the initials JRN, he suffers seasons of declining patronage.  They all do.
       
Around about here, we are pulled down into gloom and guilt by the intrusive allusion to animal abuse, which feels like a PETA pop up ad appearing on the screen.   In this instance, of  how only less than 20% of the animals Barnum and Bailey purchased from other lands allegedly survived the cruel shipping conditions to America.  Pretty shocking.   There’s also the account of how P.T. wrested away Jumbo (it feels more like a theft) from the British Zoological Society, leaving countless children in tears.  I’m siding with the moppets.

Other issues raised concern a display of “uncivilized peoples” in the menagerie and, of course, the freaks.  Is the imposition of learned commentary even appropriate?  I say no, for these reasons:  Imposing modern sensibilities on the circus as it impacted the public over a hundred years ago throws everything out of wack, out of a reality far removed from today’s. Being pulled into the classroom, so to speak, detracts from the experience of watching circus in context of the times. I want the closest thing to what my forebears experienced.

It is worth noting that the recent Ken Burns film on Vietnam, a staggering masterpiece, left a panel of academic historians miffed overs its “deliberate exclusion of professional historians from their 80 talking heads”  “We weren’t trying to make arguments.” explained Burns.  “ We didn’t have a political agenda..”

Like a bright new sunny day dawning, come the Ringling brothers, who were  young and gleamingly  handsome on bill poster art, open to new ideas (giving some customers their first look at a movie, inside a special black tent).  They paid female performers the same as they paid the men, and they supported the suffrage movement among like-minded women on show  They became famous for being by far the most honest-dealing of the lot, although as to the hiring of Pinkerton detectives to monitor the midway for all manner of pick pocketing and card sharkery, curiously, that credit goes here  not to the Ringlings, but to  Barnum & Bailey!  A baffling revelation.  

By the time that The Circus reaches the year 1938, John Ringling North barely makes it onto the lot in this lopsided 4-hour anthology – long enough (21 minutes) to come off looking like a talented but inept manager in a final segment that feels fragmentary and rushed.  He gets credit for his whimsical elephant ballet and for some rave reviews his upscale brand of circus received, but no mention of  the great crowds his eclectic showmanship drew in the best of seasons.  He is implicitly  linked to gross mismanagement partly blamed for the 1944 Hartford fire that killed 168 people, mostly women and children.  The fire, which dominates this section, did not not occur on North’s watch, but on that of his cousin, Robert Ringling.  Left unrevealed is the long-simmering enmity between the houses of John and Charles Ringling, and how it erupted into the Ringling family wars of the 1940s, with North eventually prevailing.

Not until I watched the film a second time was I hit like a bolt of lightening by the most shocking and shameful omission of all, which raises all sorts of questions concerning Grimberg’s true intent.  (I will not look into her background until after posting this}.  Comes the season of 1956, plagued by a long-festering Teamster’s strike.  One talking head: “The circus was writing its own ending.”   Then comes Pittsburgh, where the show gives  “one final performance.”  Another troubling error.  The circus gave two shows that day —   the first, to a half house at 6:30; the last starting two hours before midnight, when all 9,856 seats were packed and another thousand or so were strawed.    

North issues a press release announcing that he is closing the show and sending it back to the barn.   Alright, yes, he did.  And so then ...?  I am on the edge of my seat, wondering if, during my first viewing, I missed the part when North announces his plans to open the circus the following spring at Madison Square Garden, as usual, and then take it out on the road playing indoor arenas. No, I did not.  Incredibly this key part of the release – so integral to understanding the truth of that last stand under canvas -- is left out.  Whatever  Grimberg was trying to achieve, it seems clear that evidence was willfully excluded to advance a false reality. One can only speculate what her agenda might be, but certainty it was not to affirm any future for the circus.

Twenty one minutes for John Ringling North, one of the towering creative forces in world circus history.  Twenty one minutes for him to look like a loser and vanish.  So much for the captivating parade of circus stars from far and wide that he unstintingly offered Americans; for the ingenious seat wagons of Art Concello;  the arguably unprecedented costume design brilliance of Miles White;  the dazzling midway makeovers of Norman Bel Geddes and then Bill Ballantine;  the academy award winning movie by Cecil B. DeMille that captured it all so gloriously.  None of that is  here.  What is here, instead, is the end.

Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde in The Greatest Show on Earth

Why the abrupt fade out in Pittsburgh?  Why so misleadingly bleak an ending?   The documentary is pitched as  “the rise and fall of the American railroad tent circus.”  Okay, technically, this may give them cover for bringing down so ruthlessly premature a curtain on Pittsburgh, but it hardly gives them cover for the 80 or so years they spend on Barnum’s pre-circus antics and early American circus history — eighty years before , repeat, before that great American circus train they ballyhoo even began to roll. Not their stated focus.  Makes no sense.

All of which amounts to a wholesale evisceration of all that came after Pittsburgh, and I need not go into detail here, other than to make clear, The Greatest Show on Earth continued on for sixty more years.  North put it indoors and back in the black, and, ten years later, sold it to the Irvin Feld family.

I can’t help but wondering why so many major contributors to American circus were missing in action during the film’s time frame. To name but a few:  Arthur Concello, Antoinette Concello, the Bloomington circus community, then the prime source of leading trapeze acts world-wide,  Dan Rice,  Miles White, Barbette, Irving J. Polack, Louis Stern (Polack Bros), Gargantua, American Circus Corporation shows, Cole Bros, Sells Bros, Alfred Court, Francis Brunn, Lou Jacobs.

Given the vast terrain of circus history either ignored, short-shrifted or bungled  by Grimberg and colleagues, I  am left, still, dreaming of the ultimate documentary from Ken burns.

10.23.18

Ken Burns on PBS, AD NAUSEAM ...

I have a love-hate relationship with Ken Burns. He can be straight forward. He can be  sanctimonious. I found his Vietnam War to be brilliant through and through. It had narrative thrust.

Now comes, or plods, The American Revolution (or Evolution),  and I am wondering if it took as long to happen as it does here on PBS (Pledge Break Society).  I loved the first episode, and was high and riding high ... Into the second and ... Replay now or later? .. Oh what else is there to watch???  I'm not defaulting yet to the Three Stooges.

I plowed my way through the third,well no, halfway through, and am suddenly suffering from  TMD (TOO MUCH DETAIL) . Maybe that is a good thing for civic-studies classrooms, Siberian shut-ins, or repellent aversion TV therapy.

It's drawing raves. I see the Wall Street Journal called it "static." The understatement of the century. 

Static. I'll give it another chance, I think, I may, I should.  Could get better.  And maybe if I am lucky, the final episodes will be scored by Andrew Lloyd Webber.  

Better yet, maybe Masterpiece will put out their own version of the tumultuous tiff on our side that sent the other side retreating into a very very long Ken Burns night

The Phantom of Plymouth Rock, anyone? 

Bad Day in the Zoppe Bleachers for One Family

Preface:  It is not my policy to favor certain shows by withholding negative feedback  of them, be it a review or comment left  here.  This is a comment that was posted  yesterday at the end of my review of Zoppe's 2024 show, "Send Back the Dogs" I have never sat in the bleachers, so I would be hard pressed to comment myself.     

"We came to the circus yesterday with three families and three young kids (ages 1.5 to 4). We were the first ones to enter the tent. The seating is made of tall bench-style rows with wide gaps and no stairs, so you have to climb up each bench. As we tried to go up, my daughter nearly fell through one of the gaps — it’s genuinely unsafe for small children.

Because of that, we chose to sit together in the middle row, leaving three entire empty rows in front of us. We were sitting tightly together, not taking extra space. Someone from the staff asked us to move up, and we explained that the benches were unsafe for our kids and that adults and older kids should be the ones climbing higher.

Then the person who appeared to be the owner or announcer came over and started shouting at us, saying things like “This is my circus, this is my show,” and threatened to make us leave if we didn’t move. His tone was aggressive and completely uncalled for, especially in front of small children. I honestly started shaking — it was that upsetting. One of the adults in our group asked him to please calm down because of the kids, but he continued.

Ironically, the show wasn’t even full. Many benches stayed empty throughout. There was absolutely no need for the confrontation.

This was supposed to be a fun family outing, and instead it turned into a really frightening and stressful experience. I would never return. The way we were treated was rude, unprofessional, and completely unnecessary, and the seating setup is unsafe for young children."

ZOPPE'S LATEST PARTY A FALTERING AFFAIR: Mediocre Lineup and Superfluous Clowning Miss the Magic Mark.

Circus Review
Zoppe Family Circus
Redwood City, CA November 8
$31 tops at ringside

 

A clown for all rings: Giovanni at the opening number

How to review a circus so less than what it was the last time you saw it?  Had I lived through a two-season long Zoppe golden age?

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of audience participation.   The Zoppe audience laps it up like honey. Maybe because it has special appeal to the kiddies. Go figure, while I lay down some kind of a review.  So, let's start with some feel-good highlights, and work our way down. Feel free to leave at any time.  

Top of the pack, a fellow working from an upright ladder, leans way way  back, lets go and lands on a small  a pad below that springs him somersaulting across the ring.  Daring. Dynamic.  Dashing.   Audience ate it up.

Two robust Cossack trick riders meet our expectations well enough, and a dog act delights in the key of sufficient.  A young juggler takes the ring with such force and authority, it’s a big let down to see so many items dropped.  And my favorite for style and flash —  a fellow working a web more like a single trapeze. Wish he could have given us more.

Impressive new feature: A live three piece band, yes, LIVE,  that wraps the show in festive scoring, maybe a decimal too high. I heard a lyrical passage that calls to mind Fellini.  Kudos to these salty windjammers!

Okay, as for all the rest: In-between the acts, and sometime during them, Giovanni, a gifted creative clown, yet seems always to be there, unable to let go. Always hovering.  And since he is the owner, there is nobody to reign him in from hovering — or invading.

For example, wanting to grab hold of a cloud swing too high to reach,  he takes his sweet time combing the audience for a suitable understander. Takes a heavy set fellow down into the ring, and proceeds to climb aboard the man’s bent backside so that, finally, he can reach up and grab the swing. And show off.  And I am all the while wondering if both have life insurance.  Unless the man was a plant, I find the whole thing highly questionable.  And I can't remember a big giggle payoff, as he has produced in the past. Pointless?

 

           

Critically Missing: Three figures who gave last year’s charmer rare sheen and a Big Heart: Giovanni’s two sons, Julien and Ilario, both missing in action.  Ilario does manage to sneak in at the very end, out of a trunk, but minus clown face, costumed to demonstrate the skills of an equilibrist. All at the age of around four or five.  

The third figure most missed: The mystically wordless  ringmaster, Patrick McGuire, who gave this show such class.  In to replace him, a fellow in black who refers to himself as the manager, and whose sole function is is to eject the ever intrusive Giovanni. They perform a scripted exchange that strains to be funny. 

Too much padding.  Intermission hypes photo ops with one of the dogs and face painting..  As before, you  will not find a single photo of any of them on the website.  I hadn’t the will to try digging beyond.   

Zoppe is catering to adults wishing to take their kids to a real circus.  But the slim crowds suggest either the market – or the show — is limited. Tent, they say, seats 500. There once were two rows around the ring curb. Now, only one.  Of the last three Zoppes I’ve taken in, I’d guess they drew around on average two hundred plus customers. 

They have a special place in the American circus scene. May they endure. All circuses have their ups and downs.  Maybe the best thing about Zoppe is their ability to change.  You can go not exactly knowing what to expect. I will hope that little Ilario comes to his senses and rejoins clown alley.    

2 - ½ stars.  To see my two last reviews of Zoppe, enter "Zoppe" in the search box above  left.

SATURDAY NIGHTMARE IN NO-SHOW OAKLAND: LIFE ON THE EDGE OF A CITY THAT ONCE WAS ...

Oakland, in better days gone by,: In front of my apartment building on 1800 Lakeshore Avenue, where I wrote my first book, Behind the Big Top.  Now living half a block from Piedmont, I avoid Oakland lake the plague.

A message I sent yesterday to Laura, my neighbor in the building where I live, which she once managed, after returning from m trip to Zoppe Family Circus. 

OMG, a Lyft driver bringing me back from Redwood City on the freeway, his car starts  making bangs, I ask Luis if it’s the car, and he seems to say yes (speaks almost no English, possibly recruited at the Southern boarder, pre-Trump), but keeps on driving. Then I smell rubber burning and he exits onto Broadway, near maybe second street, goes into the trunk to get out tools. I get out and flea up Broadway  wanting to get another Lyft home.  I keep walking, looking for a place where it would be easy for Lyft to FIND ME, which is something you'd think they could and should do, rather then directing me across the street or up to an interaction. I settle on Grand Avenue, and from there summon a Lyft for home.

What is wrong with the picture I have just walked through? On the ghostly vacant street, a black man or two every block or three.  Old Asian lady with cart  waiting at bus top.  Any whites? Maybe a couple. And it dawns on me, that I was in DOWNTOWN OAKLAND on a Saturday afternoon. DOWNTOWN.  I see no people going into or coming out of the the lower level shopping mall across from where DeLaurs  newsstand once operated. I remember when there was Swansons.  When Oakland was such a wonderful place.

The last time I went down there, to the lawn bowling greens at the lake (I used to love watching the games), one of the greens was totally neglected and weeding out. No bowlers showed up, so I went to call for a Lyft, but thought, I will have to stand in front of a store, without the luxury of being able to move on if something coming my way looks like parole city pride.  So, as with yesterday, I kept on walking, up to a sane and prospering location.
    
I much prefer confining myself to the delightful city of Piedmont Avenue.  

D / upper wastelands 

MIDWAY FLASH!... MIDWAY FLASH! ...SUSPECT IN CARSON & BARNES MURDER REVEALED: ARMANDO CACERAS

Originally reported  here on 10.30.25 

Traci Byrd, daughter of Barbara and Geary Byrd, has been murdered.  Am awaiting news of her assailant. 

My heart goes out to the family.

 UPDATE (11/5/25) — FOX 23 NEW: The McIntosh County District Attorney's Office identified the victim and suspect in a homicide near Council Hill on Tuesday.

The DA's Office said 53-year-old Traci Byrd of Hugo was found dead in a wooded area near Highway 72 and Highway 266, close to Council Hill.

The suspect, 47-year-old Armando Mustafa Rojas Caceras, also from Hugo, was found in a barn nearby with injuries consistent with struggle. 

********************************************** 

The story as reported in the HUGO NEWS fails to mention Caceras. 

Alex Smith first brought this to my attention.

Circus and Baseball ... I Felt a Rare Connection ...

Before the parade passes by this morning when the Dodgers take a victory lap down in L.A, a few raves for Japanese Baseball.   

Honestly, I haven't been as fully thrilled by any event in the wider world of entertainment since spring days in the 1950s when John Ringling North's latest edition of the Greatest Show on Earth opened at the Garden in New York. Just to read about it. To learn of new acts from foreign lands. To awe over color photographs of new Miles White costumes filled me with wonder.

I grew up around rings of imported magic, when the words FIRST TIME IN  AMERICA  appeared in bold under the names of acts in the Ringling program magazines.

And a little of that other worldly mystique captured my spirits while watching the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.  Call this team the Japanese edition. They are calling Shohei Ontani the greatest baseball player ever.  He bats them out of the park with the ease of a kid with fly swatter   He can pitch in a pinch, too.  

But the MVP award is going to another dynamo from over there ---  Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a pitcher who sends the ball with incredible indifference to big league players hoping to touch it a little.

Three Rings of Magic: Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki 

Watching this electric World Series— lifting me to the gods of glory one moment, dumping me into despair the next, I, a certified wimp, walked out of the two games that fell into overtime, fearful of the worst, only to wake up the following  morning  to jubilant images on TV of Dodges players celebrating victory on the field.  I clapped my hand. I smiled up at the beyond. My body tingled with joy. 

And it helps me understand and respect how the most avid sports fans can, in fact must, ride so many emotions And why they can't stay away. Call it a healthy habit.  I’m sticking to baseball, a sport that they say is dying, yet a sport that drew the greatest attendance ever this season in one ball park. Guess which one? 

And in a few hours, I’ll be watching the World Series champs two times in a row parade down in Los Angeles.  (You can stream it on KTLA)

And next season, I can’t wait to step into the Giants ballpark in the city for the first time – to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers play.  

Buy a cap?  Around here, that could get me lynched.

Ringling by Feld Still Struggles to Click in Circus-Less Makeover ... Self Evisceration Has Its Limits ...

    READING THROUGH an article in The Boston Globe, by Matthew J. Lee, about the current plight of Ringling, there is an implicit sense of failure in the air.  A puzzling failure dogging the Greatest Show on Earth as it once more, in the barn for almost a year, tries to concoct yet another performance formula that may fill more seats. 

    CHILDREN IN PARTICULAR seem to be their greatest concern, as they focus more on teaching them circus skills through You Tube. This, they believe, will grow a bigger fan base for whatever it is they are up to.  Not much in the story about the new show, other than that a live DJ will  spin poplar music.  And that Bailey their bot mutt and a big hit, will be returning. I WONDER WHY?  Nothing better illustrates more than a fake dog, the producing timidity behind this strange self-eviscerating makeover. Is that Irvin Feld I hear screaming from his grave? 

    CONCEDED CEO JULIETTE FELD Grossman to Lee,  they face “a bit of an identify problem. We were out of the market for a number of years, and in that time a new generation of kids was born and families found new rhythms and different places to go for their entertainment experiences.When we brought  back the touring unit, we had done a lot of soul searching.”

Is the Big Show stuck in the wrong venue?

      BIGGER PICTURE:  Years ago, a circus could count on a higher percentage of American to patronize it.  In Santa Rosa when Polack came to town for two days, up to half the town may have seen it.  There still is a market, but apparently not nearly what it was

    IF I TOLD YOU that New Ringling drew six to eight thousand people per show in L.A. last summer, you might be impressed. But in the 18,000 seat Crypto arena, the optics were unflattering.  

    WHEN JOHN RINGLING NORTH ordered the circus indoors back in 1957, a far higher slice of the American landscape still favored circuses.  Not so much now.  And this may be the Feld's biggest problem – would they, could they to go back under canvas?  I doubt it.

“Something New happens roughly every three seconds.”

      A TRULY BIZARRE PROMISE from Grossman — is she out of her mind?  No, she’s taking a cue from the speed at which her Monster Truck Shows rip and tear.  Rapid Ringling, the new rage?   
  
    QUERIED ABOUT LAST YEAR'S BUSINESS,  answered Grossman “ticket sales were strong for the first  tour.” I’ve read that in some of their last dates, they were begging for customers.  Scathing Yelp Reviews were of little help.
                                        
    ABOUT ALL THE NEW CHANGES going on at the circus that no longer dares  speak its name,  writes a sympathetic Lee,   “That hopefully will lead to ticket sales for the show.”

For  “the show” — hopefully, if not the circus.

     PERSONALLY, I HAVE ALL ALONG  believed that Ringling should have led the way in showing America a true circus still, yes, without exotics but with dogs and ponies and camels and  horses, etc.  They are failing to do what other circuses around the world, such as Zoppe Family, are doing. The irony is that they may be by far the richest organization and have all the resources to do it, including valid experience in putting out one-ring tent editions. We are living through the saddest chapter in Ringling  history.

Thanks to Don Covington for the link. 

BASEBALL'S GREATEST NIGHT ...

Baseball is the only sport I follow, currently thrilled by the reign of a Japanese superstar being hailed the greatest of all time, yet I was too much a wimp last night to watch this one out.  But this morning, I awoke to this fabulous prose in The New York Times by By Andy McCullough. He begins:

"LOS ANGELES — On a night when Shohei Ohtani could not be subdued, on a night when one of baseball’s cathedrals offered its entrants a baptism in the sport’s capacity for agony and ecstasy, on a night when the shame that the game had to end morphed into the fear that it never would, the Los Angeles Dodgers captured control of the World Series in a 6-5 Game 3 victory in 18 innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

At 11:50 p.m., six hours and 39 minutes after the first pitch arrived, Freddie Freeman supplied the walk-off home run off Toronto reliever Brendon Little to send the Dodger Stadium crowd into the sort of rapture possible only after two full games’ worth of teeth-grinding, stomach-turning, heart-rending baseball. At the end of the joint-longest game in World Series history, the fans were exhausted. They were exhilarated. As Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” blared across Chavez Ravine, they were heading to the parking lots knowing the Dodgers were two victories away from a second consecutive world championship."

Way to go, L.A.! 

OUT OF THE PAST: Blundering Big Tops: Ringling Ditches Portland-Seattle ... Big Apple Pitches Pony Rides .... Fly-Shy Circus Vargas Dishes Half a Show ... And the Elephants Apply for Assisted Living ... Who Said the Circus Was Alive and Well?

 

Something happened at the Big Apple Circus that nearly took my breath away.  No, not an act of art, but an act of commerce. Commerce of the kind you normally do not associate with “New York’s own.”

Well, now, New York’s own sells pony rides!  Yes, they are that flat out desperate, it appears, this being another of their recent Make-or-Break Seasons.   Another round of bailout money from Wall Street Greed may yet come to another rescue.

I once wrote a book called Fall of the Big Top and one fan of good intent, likely speaking for many others, was Don Covington, himself then company manager for the Big Apple Circus.  Don e-mailed me his pleasure over many memories my book brought back. But he also wanted to make clear being understandably at odds with my misleading subtitle: The Vanishing American Circus.  Wrote Don, “American circus has not vanished, it is vital and evolving.”

Don may have been right, then. Now, the word devolving seems apt. In fact, the subtitle should have read The Vanishing Great American Three Ring Circus.   That’s what I was really thinking.  And so the blame lies with me for ticking off anybody else out there who felt the blunt edge of overstatement.  And still ... Now, if you will pardon my incredible disrespect, I am wondering if in fact the American circus is in any form, old, new, in rehab or on parole, not slowly vanishing?

In peak Big Apple years.  Marty and Jake LaSalle, 2008, just plain terrific.

The stomach-turning news of the pony ride felt like the last nail in a coffin.  Pray it ain’t so.  Reaching beyond White Tops and Circus Report for a sliver of reality, I found but one review on Trip Adviser.  Be warned, the following content may not be suitable for circus fans of any age:

 “Its expensive, the acts are dated and boring, both me and our 10 year old fell asleep. Everything is overpriced and the stupid pony rides a big ripoff. Ok if you're 5 and never seen a circus before.”

Fair, balanced, and boring: I must say, from the photos I’ve seen of the new show, it looks quite promising.  Reviews?  Count on the New York papers to usually give New York's own circus a valentine pass.  

.

What next under the Big Apple tent?   Mass audience participation?   They could sell seats in the ring itself, making it easier for audience members (or shills) to already be in place when a clown comes calling.   A one hour Shrine-like intermission for peanut peddling?  (Hey, I might go for some cashews.)  The passing of a ringmaster’s hat?

The audience getting into the act is what's packing our tents these days, right?  Hey, you won't see that at Monte Carlo!

Around other beleaguered rings, more reason to rue the same.  Take Ringling, dumping Pacific Northwest dates, Seattle and Portland not deemed profitable enough to justify rail bills into the region. Locals up there none to thrilled.  Where instead will the trains now be routed:     Berkeley?  The Bermuda Triangle?

Feldishly fading: The Gold unit is history. So, of course, soon the pachyderms, destined for medicare and Assisted Living. 

Meet forced Floria retiree Mabel, being fitted for glasses under JumboCare.

Half a Vargas:   If you go, be prepared for a great first half (to be kind, I am overlooking a lame story line too cliche to credit): a sure hand in the gifted direction to cheer; excellent taped music; inventive staging around two jugglers working simultaneously; a clown, Alex Acero, who is very funny when he is being a clown (see my write-up about him a few posts down).  There is the commanding Patrick Marinelli, an illusionist and fabrics flyer of swaggering star power; terrific trampoline and wall bouncing exploits.   There's a lovely (rather than mandatory) aerial ballet featuring the winning Cathy Poema on a compelling lyra workout, and without wires.  So, into the break, the artfully exciting first half delivers big.  And this even without a double wheel and Marinelli on straps -- two turns advertised but not seen the day in Hayward when I went.  I felt so good, that I prayed the feeling would carry over into the last half.   A solid 3-star show, minimum, in the making.

Now, if you go and feel as elated as I did at the half way mark and wish to hold that feeling on your way out, then on your way out should be at intermission. Stop there.  Run, do not walk, but LEAVE.   What will you be missing?  Other than the classy Poema family on risely, whose once cute little boy now struggles to redefine his persona (a diet would help) nothing else is notable. Nothing.   Never have I seen so many “flyers” doing so little on the flying trapeze.  With only one hundred plus in the tent the day I went, guess they weren’t in the mood.  Never are when I’m there.  Maybe if they performed no matter the house size, more people would show up.  I counted two motorcycles in the big globe. Whoopee.   Dull.  Empty.  Done.

Vargas feels like a circus not wanting to be a circus.  Lots of Cirque du Soleil posturing this year. End point offers vacuously irrelevant ensemble dancing.   Such a let down after the stellar first half.   Good golly, Molly,  would it break payroll or cause PETA to riot if a dog act was allowed into the ring.  Just a dog act?

All these depressing developments are pushing my pen into Big Think mode.  Gotta warm up another cup of Gen Mai Chi tea.  There’s a thread I’m threading through all of this — a reason why, no matter what they do, the public may still stay away in large numbers.  And here it is:

Enter the ambivalent circus audience

Come back someday, and I might run with it.

Bye!

First posted November 10, 2015

CNN on New Ringling /S2 Promisng You Tube Teaching Circus Skills to Kids, Live DJ Spinning Pop Music: "That Hopefully Will Lead to Ticket Sales" ...

 

SHOCKING COLLISONS STALK THE GLOBE OF DEATH IN FOUR BRIT CIRCUSES ... HISTORY OF MAYHEM AND DEATH REVEALED ..

The first known Globe, patented in 1904

    INSIDE THE GLOBE OF DEATH, originally a carnival attraction, there can be no doubt that its amazingly adept riders save themselves by sheer heart-pounding  mastery. Round and round go the motor maniacs.   Year after year, show after show, and nothing ever happens.  Or does it?  

   IN THE LUSTING HEARTS of those sitting in the seats, surely the promise of a tragic collision keeps them on the edge.  I am never on the edge, for I have sat through  too many endlessly safe exhibitions. Perfection is a bloody bore. Okay, next act please.  

    ACTUALLY, I'D PREFER watching an imperfect act now and then, to remind myself of how circus thrives in the state of reality, no retakes, no editing — flyer missing connection to catcher and failing into net below; juggler dropping clubs and scrambling to rebound. Without such moments, how can our sense of peril be sustained?   

    I CAN'T RECALL EVER hearing news of a gory outcome inside the Globe of Death.  But the crowds make up for flawless executions by running visions through their anxious minds of sudden mayhem. And they keep waiting.  

    WELL SOMETHING HAS FINALLY HAPPENED, over in the birthplace of circus.   A crack in the gloss.  Sudden skid off course into unscripted chaos.  In UK circuses, were most of the shows are hauling the monster cage from lot to lot, this past  summer, four riders were injured between Circus Extreme, Zippos, Circus Fantasia, and Blackpool Tower Circus.  No fatalities.  But a potentially terrific boost to the act’s power to compel.  Why did I not see anything about  this on the TV?  Daily Mail, where you there?  This will likely inflate the fear factor, and keep this cumbersome exploitation from going away anytime soon.

     ON THE SCENE IN LONDON, Douglas McPherson has crafted  a  cracking good history of the globe, which informs this posting, and which has just been published in The Stage. I've learned that it goes back much farther than I knew, to at least to 1904.  A 100-year-old 3 ton globe is still used by the Jordan show.    

Some excerpts:   

    Pedal Bikes Preceded Motor:  So I got a taste of that at Zoppe Family Circus two years ago.  

    From America With Guts:  Stunt rider Arthur Rosenthal holds the fist patent, dated 1904. His drawing submitted is  "identical to the ones used today."

    Riders Do Die:  There have been at least tree. Perhaps the most horrifying one took place at Bertram Mills Circus in 1951. Inside a bottomless globe 70 feet above the ring, Arno Wickbold's clown costume got caught in his wheel and sent him to his death before 6.000 stunned spectators.

    Black-Outs For Some: From Julia Kirilova, founder of the all-women Big Kid Circus globe team:  "Lots of Globe of Death riders tend to black out for a second or two, but come back and carry on."

   The Ecstasy of Danger:   Said MalinYovov:  "People pay money to see the best shows in the UK with the most extreme stunts ...When I hear the audience go wild, I just can't wait for the next show to do it all again."

Oh, I just love that quote.  
 
    THE MOST RIDERS EVER to circle each other at the same time?  World records site the Infernal Varanne Riders, a stunt troupe,  for having six riders in motion, and a person standing in the middle of them.  Hold on! I counted eight riders at the ERA Intersection of Time in Shanghai, in 2010.    

To read McPherson's fascinating in depth on the subject, here's a link to the story

https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/inside-the-globe-of-death-the-history-of-the-perilous-circus-act

Yes, there's a firewall, but you can read two or three articles for free by signing up.

Happy globing!

Beware the Hazzards of YouTube Big Topping ... When and How Digital Slights the Ageless Delight ...

     In the Kingdom of Kong, at Big Kid Circus

I am coming to terms with a situation I have long alluded to whenever looking at a circus performance on YouTube:  Among many set backs, your view is limited to where you are placed, to the camera's focus, and to the sometimes muddled split-focus imagery resulting from costumes and sets getting in the way.  This post was spurred by Douglas McPherson's  review of the  Big Kid Circus. So here we go ...

ACTION VERSUS PRODUCTION: In the YouTube of a particularly lavish set, such as  what Big Kid Circus offers patrons across the Big Pond, I found myself  straining at times to stay focused on the act. For example, I was hooked  by a single trap artist, who seemed to slither in and out of the proceedings.  

In fact, the production has so much atmosphere -- flashing lights, lavish costuming and scenic effects, it can feel like getting lost in a gigantic birthday cake 

EDITING: You may be watching a partially edited video, which will give you a distorted view of the entire performance.  During a comedy number, the clowns were moving back and forth across the ring to an end point blocked by a scenic element.  

ACTS COMPETING WITH PRODUCTION: Perhaps nothing in my big top You Tubing has come so close to making me feel at times swamped in the colors, lights, props and special effects. They are quite impressive here, but I still prefer clear sight lines to what the performers are doing. 

MULTIPLE VERSIONS:  Sometimes, someone will send me a link to another video of the same show --- "this has more of the story-line" -- "this shows the cris-cross flyers" -- which only begs the question, what else may be missing?

What I think I liked at Kingdom of Kong:  Hard to believe  that a roller skating act so impressed me. Also impressive juggling. The single trapeze guy.  Human pyramids. Clowns bouncing balls against a wall that I could not fully see behind a blocked view.  Five acrobats.  Quick costume changes - terrific. Contortion dancing.  Emphatic Afro  dancing.  The prevailing mood comes with heavy music that can overwhelm.  This is not a wishy washy show.  I can see it maybe being a lot of fun, especially when going with a friend.

Two big acts not so fun: The double wheel opens the show rather weakly  The closing Globe of Death features three motor divas from Iran. With the unfortunate accidents to several globe of death riders recently, this will surely inflate the fear factor in these acts and only lessen the chances of their going away  any time soon. 

In his review Douglas calls it "the best looking big top show in Britain." Well worth reading,  you will find it at circusmania.blogspot.com. Scroll down past a  fascinating report he has just posted, with photos and comments. of  his "whistle stop tour of some of its biggest traveling shows." Very interesting and educational. I can't remember reading anything about circus in India.

Blame it on YouTube. 

MIDWAY FLASH UPDATE! ... MIDWAY FLASH UPDATE! ... JULIE PARKINSON OUT AS CIRCUS WORLD CEO ...

I have held off on putting a  name to this.  This morning, I called Circus World, and Deb took my call. 

She confirmed that, yes, Julie Parkinson is out.

Our anonymous informant had written me that Parkinson "has been fired due to internal mismanagement by the historical society."

This Morning I Kissed My Laptop ...

Why,? Having owned a Dell Vostro  XP since 2008, the one I still use to write drafts on, horror of horrors  yesterday the cursor started jumping around, up or down while I was typing.  This is what happens on my Dell Latitude, but I blame myself for buying it reconditioned.  Never again.

As for my most recently acquired  laptop, another Dell, it is so damn stiff and resistant to my touch, but has no problem allowing torrents of pop ups and roll bys and screen-hording BILL GATES GARBAGE to rampage freely.  Is there an AI version of this founding MS shark?  Yes it is time to try HP or X.  

So this morning on my pet PC,  I composed the draft of a press release. NOT ONE CURSOR RUNAWAY.  All keys landed safely in place.

And so I kissed  My Vostro,and touched it lovingly and told it I would never fire it up so many times during the day, as I had yesterday.

We type in the shadows

No going on line 

As long as it works

you'll always be mine.

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF A MEDIOCRE DAY AT THE CIRCUS

FROM SHOWBIZ DAVID SHOCK THERAPY DIVISION

You’re on your way to THE CIRCUS.  Like all the times before, your expectations are high.  This could be another Big One.  This might get it right, might run the acts in a steady confident flow. Might offer a few Big Moments.   You’re hoping to be thrilled.  You’d settle for GOOD. that too much to ask for?   Not GREAT but simply good.

Or worse?  How not to be let down on the other side of the canvas?   How not to end up nit picking away,  pitting every act on the bill against Francis Brunn (OK, Anthony Gatto?). La Norma or the Hannefords.

Here is my advisory for fans who suffer from Chronic Circus Comparison Syndrome (CCCS), to blot out the past in order to take on the present. Do  a clean sweep of your brain.  You want the show you are abut to see to be as magical as the the first circus you saw. So the exercise is to clear your mind of all that has gone before.

No, I do not advise a pre-performance lobotomy. There are some less destruct measures you can take to achieve a better outcome.   Are you ready?  

* BAN YOUR MEMORIES FOR THE DAY Think anything else.  Think the many ways in which I’ve made a fool of myself on this blog.  In this way, you may enjoy acts you have long dismissed out of hand as garden variety fodder. Even this takes conning yourself into the mind set of a five year old.   

* START WITH A CLEAN SLATE Let the acts color it their way, not yours. Your biggest challenge is pretending you have never seen any of them or their like before.   

 * BUY THE BEST SEAT IN THE TENT If you are about to endure schlock showmanship, at lest suffer it in maximum comfort by investing in a chair close to to  the ring.

* DO NOT READ THE PROGRAM before or during the show If there is one.  I want you to be surprised by the unfolding parade of wonders — not affected by any advance grudges against anything you're about to see --  until after the show.    

* BRING EAR PHONES as a backup soundtrack, in the event the first notes from the band (or, CD player) put you in a funk. No, No, not that crap!  Nothing can affect our attitude towards an act as much as the music.

* LET THE FUNDAMENTALS SHINE  Okay, the show is on!   If there is an opening ensemble splash, these almost always please. Let the performers entertain for you, let them show you what they can do, not what you want them to do.  These feel good openings will give you a fair idea of the talent level ahead. Doubts already?  You might try shifing your mood into gratuitously grateful.   

 

* ADMIRE THE STRIVING YOUNG HEART  You will now and then see them out there.  Give them a break.  Give them a chance. This business does not promise anyone a fortune, and we all have to start somewhere. They are the future of circus.

* LOOK TO THE CHILDREN  Look and listen to them, let their reactions be yours. You were one of them once, just as tickled watching the clowns stage a slap happy boxing match. How you marveled at the cleverness of it all!

* BRING A DATE  Preferably, the one  you are hoping to have your own circus with, some time after the show — if not during intermission.  Dare you tarnish your chances by  coming off as either a hopelessly infatuated circus fan  — or uppity critic who can’t shut up? No, No! Keep the ghosts of circus days past in lock down.  

* WITHHOLD ALL OPINIONS  Express yourself in applause and smiles, hold the date above the show.  In Virginia  several seasons ago, with  my sister, two nieces and one grand nephew, we took a chance on a show I’d never heard of, Do Circus Portugal.  After the show, I first asked them what they thought?  They had little to say other than pointing out some flubs over a few carping laughs --- being more critical than I.  Now my turn. I praised a young man on the bill for two outstanding turns — marvelous juggling and  dazzling rapid fire two-person quick costume changes. Below, an act with Do Portugal I do not recall seeing.

* IF ALL ELSE FAILS   Try this killer exercise.  Close your eyes for ten seconds.  Imagine the worst circus you ever saw. I will kindly refrain from making known mine. Okay, now open your eyes and resume watching.  Better? 

Heck, I can't wait for the next circus I see in person, I’m going to try taking my own advice  Already, I’m trying it against my phobia for an act fit for the Gong Show: You will stop trashing hula hoops. ... I will stop trashing  hula hoops ...

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