SUNDAY BACKWARD: Creepy Clowns Grip the Nation! ... Letizel and Codona Movie in Works at Warner ... Cirque’s Paramour Gets Scripting Overhaul, Biz Remains Stagnant ... Vinyl is Back ... Farewell, Jack Ryan and Pat Cashin ... and More on the Inside!

Do Creepy Clown lives matter?  That’s what I heard this morning on a radio talk show having fun with the issue.
 

This latest media storm is becoming fodder for late night  TV comedians.   It’s also no laughing matter for our struggling big tops, unless some really smart circus can spoof its own jesters into a new kind of merry mayhem.  Ringling, you’ve tried outer space. What say, a trip to the asylum for retired clowns on parole?   Bring on the Scariest Show on Earth!

Creepy clown sightings are spreading like a visiting virus    Another gift of social media, the demented darlings are rattling news wires, stalking schoolyards, scaring kids half to death.  But what a nice diversion from that political circus going on all around us.  Maybe Lady Hillary or Lord Donald will show up at the next debate in gory greasepaint, or is that what they are already wearing?  (shhh! Think Hillary's laugh, kids ...)

Pity the well-intended circus clown: If this creepy movement isn’t reason enough for all circuses to ban traditional jester makeup in favor of the harmless red nose, (okay, to be extra safe, a pink one)  I don’t know what is.  More and more adults are outing their own fear of funny faces.   No longer something to hide from.  Simon Cowell on America’s Got Talent, for one.   Just another nail in the coffin of our sadly beleaguered big tops.

P.T. Barnum once said that "clowns are the pegs on which the circus is hung."  Well, these days, they may be hanging it — literally

Onto great promising news  Have we, at last, a high-drama quality film for adults about a genuinely tragic American circus story?  New flick about aerial thrillers Lillian Leitzel and Alfred Codona in the works at Warner Bros, and how I hope the Weinsteins have their hands in this one.  Heavy weights already signed on include producer Andrew Lazaar, who handled Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, and Aussie actress Margot Robbie, right (The Wolf of Wall Street, Suicide Squad), to play Leitzel.  I’m thinking this could be The One I’ve been waiting for through too many mediocre big top flicks  Think of the background alone --- Ringling in the ‘20s!.  The rivalry between Leitzel and her scheming nemesis, conniving Vera Bruce ... Of the tragic ends that would befall both icons.  

To be based upon Dean N. Jensen’s 2013 book Queen of the Air, and I can’t wait.  Yes, I might have said that before another film, Water for Elephants, came out, but I’d not yet read the wretchedly brutal book from which the latter was faithfully adapted. 

Can Queen of the Air achieve what all other circus flicks have failed to do: Mine cinematic gold from genuine big top history? Film Makers and documentarians  have long shunned compelling subject matter staring them in the face: I’m thinking the towering figure of reckless circus king John Ringling, who lived a colorful and ultimately tragic life, and I’ve thought of Leitzel and Codona, and of course of the catastrophic Hartford fire, not to mention its genesis in a fractious war among Ringling heirs for control of the circus.

What do we usually get from Hollywood?  Of late, Water. I mean, tell me, please, was there ever a circus as thoroughly sadistic as that one?   As improbably untrue to any semblance of tent show history, then, before or now?

Another Cirque du Fizzle?  The company’s ill-reviewed New York stage show, Paramour, closed down quietly for a few days in late Auguest to reivse script in reponse to public feedback, some fans wanting “more acrobatics earlier in the show during the exposition,” others hungering for more meat on the bones of an empty-headed plot.  Post revamping, the altered Paramour is enduring ticket sales still ranging from pretty good to ominously stagnant, hovering too often in the 65% range.  I still think they have a chance.

Will the eggheads on the lot ever learn?  When I came across a New York Times review of two new stage shows, headlined “Identify Crisis: Theatre Productions That Refuse to be Theater,” I thought of how well it applies to circuses refusing to be circuses.

END RINGERS: Sadly, the passing of  Pat Cashin, clown and blogger, and only 48-years-old.  When I started up this blog, he was an early supporter.  That support faded away over the years, down to zero. I never exactly knew why, but likely something I said ... Also departing us, on August 25, another early supporter of my blog and the person who coined "May all your days be circus days," Ringling PR man Jack Ryan, at 77 ... Yet another circus school is rising, this one over Philly, site of the first circus to play America .... Warning to freak show imitators:  If you try dining on blades, be sure to order them Dull.  An Indian man suffering acute stomach pains, discovered by doctors to be harboring 40 various blades and knives in his guts.  About the unnamed patient, you’re thinking. extreme side show trickster?  No, think 42-year-old policeman – and maybe, on the side, a petty thief with a built in fencing flow  ... Retro trendy vinyl record lovers not going away.  It’s no passing fade.  Some new CDs coming out on old wax, too.  Down the street, just opened a vinyl-only shop.  Exciting!  Many of my old LPs from the fifties are still cracking-free good, I’ll have you know ... Sinatra never sounded better ... Oh, you gotta love the kids who don’t dismiss everything that came before them ...

Chase a creepy clown into a panic.  Pray for a great circus flick from the great Warner Bros.  And buy a vinyl record on me!  

first published in 2016

Wrapping 2024: Ringling Self-Reviews ... Cirque du Soleil Swallows Ballet ... Marcks and Mechanics, Kellner and Zoppe and Ring of Fame Plaques ... Doggies from Shelters, So No PETA Cracks!

             CIRCUS SPRINGS ETERNAL,  does it not?  A clump of papers, e-mails and notes before me, ignored or kept back in a gathering year-long stack, promise some kind of attention ahead, as I ramble through them before the current season goes bye bye into the barn ... After a rough shuffle, here is what randomly I face, from the top ..

            “A WEIRD AND WONDERFUL LIFE” for the  Zoppe Family, headlined a 2022 story from Redwood City’s On Line,  Dan Brown, profiling the old world Zoppes, with a focus on the current Zoppe leading the zip, Giovanni. They are doggedly old tradition, circa1842, all except for not using candles.  Why not? Answered Giovanni’s wife and marketing director Jeanette Prince, to Brown:  “Only because the fire marshal won’t allow it!” In the tent photo, above.     

   SCOTT O'DONNELL,  Circus World’s departing CEO, letting go of having to deal with its new bureaucratic owners, the Wisconsin Historical Society, as he tactfully implied to me when I called him.  An undercurrent of acute disappointment came through ... A big big loss in my outsider opinion.  A new CEO yet to be named.  The selection might tell us about the split.  Watch for a big name insider.

         COME ALIVE! ... Staying closer to  vintage sawdust, the new musical in London town, Come Alive!  The Greatest  Showman, is drawing boffo notices and luring good crowds to  its little 700-seat big top .. . Seems that the parade flies highest  on songs and acts, lowest when stumbling through inane story telling nonsense: Whoever went to a circus for this?  Memo to theatre snobs of increasingly idiotic irrelevance:  Out, damn dramaturgs, out!

           SID KELLNER WAS SOMEBODY ONCE   His brief reign as big top tycoon with James Bros Circus, founded with a popcorn machine in the 1950s, left some of us forever enamored of what he might have been.  Among them, Don Macks and Alex Smith, the later  recalling for me the day at Bentley Bros Circus in Vallejo, 1989, when Sid was guest of honor.  Chester Cable  "gave  great stories about Sid, wrote Alex.   "He was a handful," added Winni McKay.  I can relate, having toiled for King Kellner, and yet still miss his him to this day.
   
           GIVING NEW RINGLING A RAVE  While major media refused to review the circus that dare not speak its name,  in effect letting it review itself to Q&A reporters, a few others  fearlessly filled in the void.  London’s front line circus watcher and critic Douglas McPherson issued golden accolades, impressively noting the absence of many Cirque things that some of us, myself among the doubters, expected to see.  “Ringling has not switched camps.  There is no story line here, no theme, no message, no attempt to dress circus up as art.”

         SO HOW NEW OR NOVEL IS IT?  “It’s a traditional circus,  perhaps we should say New Traditional," opines Douglas.  I like that, although “new” is still being mostly met by an avalanche of unhappy Yelp Reviewers, wanting nothing to do with a sterile makeover.   I’d guess there’s a younger crowd ready to be entertained, and  that, given ticket and concession pries, the Feld of Felds may be cleaning up, ho ho.  Show has dates lined  up into spring.

       “WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE,” we once sang of the daring young man flying high. That word ease, and example of which -- Belmonte Cristiani, above, long ago -- feels more  meaningful to me now, as the ageless delight is more and more strapped to mechanics (lifelines, kids).  An abundance of unprotected ease charmed my heart while watching one of my favorite DVDs, highlights of the Ringling show as broadcast in 1968.  Then to my eyes, ease was more noticeable than now. Ease in the landings.  Ease in the connections. And why might that be? 

        THE PERILS OF SHUNNING PERIL  Could it be that performers in a circus without mechanics  are driven out of fear to perform  more cleanly so as NOT to risk a fall?   Oh, how softer the landings, how crisper the connections back then, before Soviet Circus era safety wire precautions invaded and practically emasculated  the rings.  Oh, how majestic the artistry!  Even Charlie Bauman, such a gracious showman, held court among his chummy tiger friends  with the greatest of ease!

           PRAY FOR  THE RING OF FAME PLAQUES  Many were attacked by  recent storms, leaving them smeared and cracked.  An update down the Covington Chute from the Circus Ring of Fame Foundation, tells of a dire outcome for 160 plus plaques  to be   “pressure washed.” The damage of each will be assessed for restoration treatment, expected  to go well into 2025.  A sad tale.

         HAS THAT ACT A NAME?   Increasing frustration, pulling up a website and wishing to see photos and names of the acts.   You might find photos with no names, or you might find nothing.  Here are three shows that deny us the obvious:  UniverSoul, Royal Hanneford, and Zoppe.  I understand this annoyance is also offered Brit fans by some of the circuses over over there. 

         AND OVER THERE IN BRIT LAND, the lions aren't roaring any more than they are over here, and  most big tops leave four legged critters out of the lineup.  Doggie stars everywhere should go on strike!    Has anybody heard of The National Dog Show?  Slowly, some of our more timidly produced shows are daring to reboot canine capers.  Big Apple Circus  brought back a pack of them to its recent Lincoln center opus. all only because, of course of course, yes, yes, okay they were  “rescued from dog shelters.”    Below, the three human fountains on Big Apple -- a knockout.

       CIRQUE DU YOU TUBE  Circuses near and far are never far away on You Tube, and that’s an armchair luxury.  Cirque du Soleil on the comeback trail is putting out one hour compilations of acts from three of its shows, and what a leap from where they were when last I saw them.  Now what I behold is  the most  persuasive merge yet of circus and ballet.  And I thought it couldn’t be done.  There’s even a fake animal on  the bill.  Really, rebranding is in order: Cirque du Ballet –  Eye Candy Acrobatics.  Would two hours of what I saw hold me?  Not so sure, the artistry seemed on the fundamental side, the acts maybe Montreal made. There latest opus, ECHO, a $30 million baby three years in the womb, is drawing wildly mixed notices, the negatives impatient with opulently obtuse narrative nonsense. Below, oh by gosh by golly, a fake horse -- out of desperation?

          BILLION DOLLAR BIG TOP  Per Fortune Magazine last April, though Cirque’s attendance is up from from pre-Covid levels  (sales then dwindling), they “remained saddled” with half a billion-plus in debt. No longer much of a fan, yet I rue, driven by the mesmerizing eye candy alone,  not having seen them when they were in San Jose recently. You Tube images are shimmering, bodies flying and floating over and around each other through staple acrobatics.  Yelp reviews reveal a growing number of people growing tired of it all. 

           DOWN THE LANE OF TALBURT  A late-breaking entry,  inspired by watching on You Tube a video he took of the wining Beatty-Cole performance in 1993, this is to acknowledge his great visual  contributions  to American circus history.  I am watching all the acts, clearly filmed, unlike so many videos taken by patrons from a fixed location, behind poles and patrons passing. Such a pleasure.   Thank you, Santa Lane!

       A TELLING VOICE I WILL MISS:  The passing  of Bill Taggart at 94,  a prime contributor to my coverage of the last days of Ringling under canvas in 1956, as profiled in my book Fall of the Big Top.  His days  on the Big Show in the yellow ticket wagon involved show-sanctioned short changing, a rather shocking  reality he made known to me and  in articles he wrote. He also shared with  me a disclosure on John Ringling North's personal proclivities, hard to believe, but then backed away and asked me not to repeat them. Maybe more on this in the coming year.

            RARE VALIDATION AT CAMBRIDGE A smiling cross-pond discovery this past year that my first book, Behind the Big Top, originally published by A.S. Barnes Over Here, the Tantiviy Press Over there, was published  an online in 2009 by Cambridge University Press.  A cap and gown for me?  I  had felt honored that the book was was reviewed by  circus connoisseur par excellence,  Antony Hippisley Coxe, excerpts of which appear at the top of the book's listing.   These seem to include only his  warmly affirmative words, not his extensive criticisms of incredibly inept editing and sloppy research on my part, all justly held.  I look forward to re-reading  Coxe's  wonderful 1951 A Seat at the Circus.

        STILL MISSING CIRCUS REPORT   The nice lady e-mailing her pleasure over the fist of seven posts I did on Circus Report founder and long time publisher, Don Marcks (she was a part of his variety shows), and anxiously waiting for more to come, and then, when more came, going silent thereafter.  Did I err in showing his more human side, such as a marriage quietly annulled?  Many of us still rue the absence of Don's labor of love, Jim Royal among them: "In those pre-internet days, Mr. Marcks provided a very valuable service to our industry." Were Don alive today, I have no doubt that he would be putting out CR online.

       LET THE FIFTIES PROUDLY PARADE!  Let me send you off whistling up a long long list of circuses touring these shores in the year 1959, as provided by John Swan’s The Circus Review.   You might be as amazed as was I, coming  across this by accident.  And who was the idiot quoted on Pledge Break Society’s (PBS) intolerably sloppy documentary, Circus, clamming that Ed Sullivan "killed the circus" in the the 1950s?  Here are all the circuses he did not kill.

Humbug!

UNDER-CANVAS CIRCUSES

Adams Bros. & Sell Circus.
Beers Barnes Circus
Carson & Barnes Circus
Cristiani Bros. Circus
Clyde Betty & Cole Bros Circus
Famous Cole Circus
Garden Bros. Circus
Hunt Bros Circus
Hagen Bros. Circus
King Bros Circus
Kelly-Morris Circus
Mills Bros. Circus
All G. Kelly & Mile Bros circus
John Strong Circus
Sello Bros Circus

INDOORS, BALL PARK CIRCUSES

All American Circus
Bailey Bros Circus
Clyde Bros Circus
Circorama
Dobritch Circus
Orrin Davenport Circus’
Don Francisco Circus
Faabian’s circus
Gil Gray Circus
Gene Holter Wild Animal Circus
Garden Bros, Circus
Hamid-Morton circus
Harold Bros Circus
James Bros. Circs
Polack Bros Circus
Rudy Bros Circus
Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Tom Packs Circus

The billowing big tops remain a world unto themselves, operating slightly on the edge of mainstream society and culture. And may they remaini that way – exotic to robotic, real or fake, candles or no.

Keep your cards and e-mails coming. You never know what might appear here next December 31. I am not so prone now to carelessly throw stuff away.  In fact, if the stack warrants, I might do a mid-year catch up in '25.

HAVE A HAPPY SNAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

SUNDAY MORNING REPLAY: Send Back the Dogs, Please! Zoppe’s Latest Charmer is a Mixed Bag

Updated, 7.6.25:  ZOPPE RESPONDS! see comments below.

Circus Review
Zoppe Family Circuses
At Redwood City, CA
November 23, 2024
Tickets: $12 to $33.

Not so easy, in fact a rather challenging confection to review.   Program starts out with barely a whimper (more on this later), clowning lingers on in spots, and the quality of action ranges from spectacular to sketchy. But tell that to the dozens of gleeful children who lapped up the performance.  In fact, if I were a parent, I would want Zoppe to be the first circus my child sees. Giovanni and  his sons have a way of connecting with kids. His missing hat routine, a crowning example, had the moppets practically flying out of  their seats screaming with pointed fingers to get his eyes on the hat.

 

In another clever bit, the two Zoppe boys – Julien, 15, and Ilario, all of three (yes, three),  find a big balloon and have fun bouncing it back and forth — until the uppity ringmaster, unable to wrest it away, reaches up to pop it. They are ordered out of the tent, only to reappear moments later, chasing after another balloon, and this bit goes on and on for, oh, maybe another hundred balloons — the last one releasing a spray of water onto our ringmaster’s head. Great pay off! Grade A clowning.

During the opening ensemble splash, little Ilario on his own runs up to a spot on the ring carpet, as if following script, and lowers himself into a head stand, joined by his father and brother doing the same.  Priceless.         

Although show is on the short side – with a concession intermission apparently consuming  as much time as is needed  –  there is sufficient talent here to impress dads and moms.. In the top tier category,  Brayan Portugal delivers stellar head stands on the  single trapeze in motion.                                                                   

German Ramos's  control walking up the ladder and down the other side is extraordinary.

Also top tier in my eyes are a troupe of rambunctiously ambitious Ethiopian performers from one of the poorest countries on earth, named Zom Habesha.  They light up the show with juggling gusto.  I only wish their act had been longer.  They also deliver a compelling risley display, giving it more the feel and thrust of teeterboard. It is as roughly executed in spots as it is brilliantly creative in others, as shown in the photo below.

And I am waiting for the dogs to appear.  Last year, they were the highlight of the show, as they tend to be on most circuses these days.

There’s gaucho dancing from the Sanchez Family, contortion by two Ethiopian girls, Beki and B, and a cloud swing from Chiara Zoppe, attached to a lifeline.  The Daring Horseman, Caleb Caracini Asch, rides masterfully well, joined by Audrey Prince for some nice duo work.  She returns in another bit, standing alone on the horse while attached to a mechanic. Seems pointless. Recorded music throughout the program is generally relevant and appealing.

A great discovery for me was ringmaster Patrick McGuire, so refreshingly different.  In fact, perhaps the most original new kind of a ringmaster I have seen in ages.  He issues few announcements, but  expresses himself in magical gestures, moving in and out of the proceedings without ever hovering.   And he surprises with a skill for juggling clubs by  running up to reach Caleb on his sauntering steed, the two then cross-jiggling. Terrifically stylish.

While still waiting for the dogs to appear, let me take the time to review the very first act on the show. Why it is even there can only be understood by knowing that the clown and the owner are the same person.  Guess who gets his way?  So we are  feted by the spectacle of Giavanni hauling out his trunk into the ring and proceeding to take his sweet time making up his face. The weakest opening I’ve ever endured at a circus.

What, the show is ending?  No dogs?  ARE YOU KIDDING, ZOPPE?  This would be like a kid at Ringling years ago waiting for the elephants to appear and being criminally stood up. No, Zoppe, No! It leaves a gaping  hole in the performance.  Unconstitutional!  Unzoppetutional!  On my way out, I stopped to tell McGuire how much I missed the dogs.  He said, “Giovanni could not find a dog act.” I don’t believe that.

This company remains true to its most consistent theme — FAMILY. And at finale, they all stand, hand to hand, perfectly still across the ring, without even a hint of  milking for applause. A  pause, and then the crowd erupts into cheers.  You could feel their joy.  Heck,  you could feel the love.

I’m praying for the return of a dog act next year.  If one isn’t there, neither will I.

3 stars 

                   Once upon a Zoppe season, not that long ago.

END RINGERS:  A rich history:  The Riding Zoppes with Cucciolo were brought to America in 1948 by John Ringling North, and they appeared in DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth ...  Jeanette Prince responded to my request for names. This is the only circus I know of that does not at least post pictures of its acts on their website. It suggests that acts are frequently coming and going during the season.  To his credit, Giovanni each year offers a fairly fresh slate of acts.  And from other lands, the show stays that much fresher ... Oh by gosh, by golly!  Yes, I was right. I am professionally related to the Zoppes.  Look what I found searching through  my papers.  Drum rolls, please!  From a press release I wrote for Sid Kellner when he hired me as press agent for his 1969 James Bros. Circus tour, headlined Circus Kids Uphold the Great Tradition of Their Parents:

"Animal trainer Alberto Zoppe's two delightful children, Caralynn, 5, and Giovanni, 3, both assist their father in his whimsical dog, poodle, and horse act.  When the ringmaster announces their entrance, Caralynn and Giovanni perk up enthusiastically and bounce into the center ring with great glee, like two tots entering an enchanted picnic area. Circus kids never have time to learn what stage fright is."

And all the years later, there's another little Zoppe following the same family muse ... (My year on the show is profiled, by the way, in my book Keep That Day Job! -- if you'll allow me the shameless plug,)

first published 11.19.2024 

STEVE AND RYAN TO MONTE CARLO ...

America Calling:  There they are!  First row, left, our own Steve Copeland and Ryan Combs appearing in this year's festival.   High Honors for two dedicated goof balls helping to keep clowning alive.  

Sunday Morning Out of the Past: Copeland & Combs Land Paris Spotlight ... Garden Bros. Lands "F" Ratting from BBB ... El Jacko's Pedophilia Paradise Exposed ... Kelly Miller Captivates in Video Tease

Remember the Copeland & Combs who once filled our days with Kelly Miller posting?  That was Steve, the tell-all one.  I have marveled over how they went totally under cover, their once thriving blog nearly now in the dirt and sadly fading away.  I walk the dirt of desertion these days.

Whatever happened?  My best guess:  Somebody told Steve, in order to protect their precarious career (we are talking "circus" career), that he had better stay clear of all social media ...  WELL, poking around in news bits from Baraboo (did I spell that right?) I learned they played --- are you ready? --- Cirque d"Hiver (yes, I know I did not spell that right)  last winter ... Mighty impressive!  Glad they are still cobbling together pay dates there and here ...  

Under  punishing North Carolina spotlights, Garden Bros, Circus ranked by the Grenville News "the worst circus." And ain't that a shocker! Like a veteran cockroach in stolen spangles, this creepy caravan just keeps slugging along.  Compared to which, maybe King-Cole, now in its second season (the first having "wrapped" in a week or two) is A OK? I'm hoping Circus Report puts out something on this show before CR goes under come December ...

So many icons and landmarks falling ...  Yes, I know there is a "Renaissance"  of circus arts underway in this country.  And are you referring to artsy stage shows?  Summer youth circuses?  Acro-dance troupes?  Pardon my asking.

Kelly Miller's website shows a performance lineup identical to last year's,  and on a video tease they have produced, the over all sheen and talent range makes me wish I could see this one   Might they be the new Ringling-Barnum?  ... Or would that be Big Apple, the latter a strange animal, apparently straining to find hospitable cities in which to play ... 

Michael Jackson's Neverland, the subject of a brilliantly believable doc now airing on HBO, should land a slew of awards ... A quietly escalating drama of how the singer skillfully charmed and seduced little boys into believing themselves to be in full-blow relationships with their freaky idol.  Blame it on the music, and oh what music it was.   I remember once joking with friends, was that a fake detachable nose he was wearing?   How much was real?...

What people will do, even with their kids the bait, to taste fame and fortune and Hollywood money ... So many love notes floating back and forth, and in clear sight, between Michael and his "lover" (of the year), and Mommy and Daddy did not realize what was going on in the bedroom, often far away from theirs?  The voices of two of the singer's subjects, clear and calm, recounting how wonderful and not coercive it seemed, and that makes the story both challenging and even more bizarre.  Except that, Mr. J was not after long-term love, which marks him as just another very average, horny predator jumping from one xxx to another ... 

First part ends with both boys having been pushed to the sidelines while younger darlings are charmed into the Neverland seduction compound... Can't wait for Part 2, to see what happened to these two fellows as they grew up to face a life without the man who swept them out of their diapers. He, at 34-ish in a private ceremony,  getting married to his latest one true love -- all of seven years old, and ominously close to seven-year-itch rejection ...Oh, whatever happened to monogamous pedophilia?

I'm outta here.  

 

3.19.19 - Ring Stoppers

clowns at gas pumps Just what we need when we needed so much less ....Good grief, does it ever end, this riisula sla from king

Forget bog rolls and petrol, Northern Ireland is suffering from a shortage of... clowns!

The news comes from David Duffy, co-owner of Duffy's Circus, as Northern Irish circuses return to the road after the lifting of lockdown restrictions, several months of after big tops elsewhere.

"Because the circuses in England and Europe have been operational for the past six months, that huge pool of EU artists are already back at work  and we haven't been able to get visas for non-EU artists," said Duffy, who has resorted to advertising for trainee clowns without experience.

"We're trying to reach out to any folks who feel that they could give it a go," he said.

So what does it take to be a Joey?

 

You have to be really adaptable and able to think on your feet, said the circus boss.

"When you go into a circus ring and you've got 700 or 800 people looking at you, then no matter what sort of mood you're in you have to light up that circus ring.

"A clown can be the loneliest place, because you're in there on your own and you have to be able to read your audience. In a few short minutes you have to get a rapport going and interact with them and feed off them."

 

In England, meanwhile, the Circus of Horrors has adapted to the fuel crisis by having Anastasia Sawicka pull her van to a filling station with her hair - a publicity stunt that got the show's current tour into the national press.

The Horrors also called on their KillerKlown to scare panic buyers away from the pumps!

 

U.S. Circuses in the Age of Virtual Reality: The Struggle to Placate Ambivalent Americans

The late Henry Edgar once posted a comment on this blog to the effect, What if you were to offer the customers what most of us would agree is the best circus possible and yet they still failed to fill up your seats ?  A very good question given shrinking crowd sizes over the last thirty years.  Maybe it's time to review not the show but the audience itself.  To continue Henry's thread, I have a question:

What is the circus owner to offer a jaded public turning fickle on big top staples?  

The Very Real Circus:  Not Virtual Enough?

Perhaps the force of circus being a live show no longer holds the same drawing power, as more people turn to virtual realities, albeit it everything from texting to eDating, video games to porno.  

I have long argued the compelling reality of circus.  More and more, I am starting to doubt the argument’s relevance in this new and rather frightening era of electronic interaction where, one day — people as smart as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak have ventured — “computers are going to take over from humans, no question.”  Wozniak can see ourselves becoming the pets of our robots.   

Item: A group of friends sharing restaurant table space, but not each others company, preferring interaction with their smart phones over the people actually sitting next to them.

Item:  Check out the movie Her, in which a man forms a relationship with an advanced operating system named Samantha.  Frightening.  And very believable.

Enter the Ambivalent American Audience

Yes, Mr. Producer, I feel your frustration, even if you don’t.  You no longer enjoy the total attention of a crowd.  You now must complete with smart phones and tablets and other tweety distractions, ad nauseum.

You now must also compete for the respect of a crowd that arrives with issues about the contents of your show.  Oh, those weird looking clowns.  Don’t .. Come ... Near ... Me ... Look at that draggy tiger, think it's been mistreated?   Which reminds me, I've got to get some suppression pills for my pit bull. No, he can't attack anybody in the nose muzzle when we go out walking. ... Oh, no, look -- she's not wearing a safety wire, is she?   Sometimes they don't?  What if, oh God!  [Another day, another show]: Oh, look, she’s strapped to a wire!  Must be a beginner.  I could do that.

Even granting that a live show can still draw big crowds, then what next to question under the big top?  There's plenty according to the critics.  On parade, here come the most politically incorrect offenders.

Circus Staples Under Siege

DAREDEVILS
 .

This key element of circus  may be losing its luster to more spectacular acts of risk-taking on TV reality shows or aerial stunts in the great outdoors captured on film.  Compared to which, the sight of a mere human scaling a wire only thirty or forty feet above the ground may somehow seem, reverse affect here, old school.  Another trend that is emasculating the show are the solo and duo fabric aerialists who throw more focus onto slower balletic moves. I think this sort of action, some of it, to be sure, quite exciting, has nonetheless eroded the public’s taste for the more perilous tricks we associate with the single trapeze.   Would Pinito Del Oro, above, have settled for a silken web? For a static trapeze?

The protected aerialist: The presence of lifelines (mechanics) has done more than anything else to produce today’s ambivalent audience.  Courage or cowardice, which will it be today, Circus? With some performers flying under protection, others not, the vacillating impression does nothing to sustain a committed identity.  And the primal power of circus suffers.   

CLOWNING

This old-time jester might today consider either less greasepaint or horror flicks

The heavily painted funny faces are not so welcome anymore.  Reports and images of creepy characters in grotesque clown makeup terrorizing citizens on city streets and in public places have produced a growing number of adults who fear taking their kids to a circus for this among the other reasons.  In Europe, there seems to be a trend towards less makeup, down to a red nose maybe and a few whimsical marks, sufficient to paint a face in mirth, but not one of implicit mayhem.  This is a viable route for today’s jesters.  After all, a clown is a character far more than a painted face.

ANIMALS

The elephants may be on the way out. So, too, the big cage cats.  But there are still plenty of dogs, horses, camels and other critters — well, if  Jenny Vidbel can find and train them. I think that John Ringling North II made about as shrewd and sensitive a move as a circus man can make these days by featuring just one small elephant, Louise, on his Kelly Miller show last season.  The dancing of Louise, nothing like I have ever seen, was pure magic.

Encore for Elephants?  If the public’s skittishness over performing pachyderms is ever to be reversed, it may take one elephant at a time.  And it may take a far simpler approach like the one advocated by UK author and critic Douglas McPherson in his book, Circus Mania: 

“The elephants don’t need to be oversold with gimmicks.  Just walking into the ring and marching, stopping and turning to command would be enough.” 

Indeed, a day may come when an audience new to such a spectacle as elephants on parade will thrill to that alone.  Certainly the children will.

Bring back the one-act show:  Circuses may help their cause by removing the intermission and running a shorter show straight through, as once they did.  Promise patrons less time away from their gadgets.  On their way out, happier, they may still be more inclined, maybe more so, to patronize the rides and concessions — the vain lure of selfies.

 Remember When Circus Day was Guilt Free?

Unlike their forebears, today's patrons enter the tent loaded with electronics and with overwrought minds buzzing with issues over whether to patronize a circus is even a good idea in the first place.
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That long-gone circus day that enjoyed the total attention of an undistracted crowd not fraught with issues, that long ago world in which we once thrilled to a circus show feeling not a qualm, reveling in the honest and simple joy of it all --- that wondrous world, I am sadly afraid, no longer exits.

The Big Show in Council Bluffs, Iowa, August 23, 1953

Next: Can Kenneth Feld Rebuild The Greatest Show on Earth?

Photos above: On horseback, the Cristiians

On the high wire:  The Wallendas

On the single trap:   Pinito Del Oro

Clown Buzzy Potts.
Barnum & Bailey on parade, 1908
Under the big top At Gil Gray Circus (from the Circus Blog)
Ringling elephants on Parade, 1978, with Ana May in the lead, the Woodcocks in charge

First posted January 18, 2016

Paranormal Circus May Grab and Spook Jaded Cirque Fans -- Masks Already in Place ...

This one's for you, Susan ...

This research, hastened by an e-mail this morning from my fun-loving L.A.friend, who wrote:  "Do you know of a circus, I heard about it when it was in Texas that was supposed to be scary or supernatural or something like that?"

Well, yes I do, Susan.  But not the Water Circus which I'm touting at the moment, one of the three units from Cirque Italy, and still hanging on to a July 30-August 9 date in St. Louis. For which, my sheltered-in best wishes.

Google directed me to a TV report from Round Rock, TX, last January, where Cirque's Paranormal unit showed horrifying promise, at least in the view of KVUE-ABC as reported by trendy young Brittany Flowers:

"This show has everything you would expect -- aerial skills, acrobats and illusionists.... Definitely a Cirque show but probably unlike any cirque show you've ever seen before."  In other words, more like an old fashioned real circus?

Hand picked photos, Susan, that I believe will play to your eerie expectations.  But don't try any of these things at home.

Chris Holt reincarnated?

In the New Big Cage, No Wild Animals.  Only Humans.

Oh, Otto, did they make you do this for another contract?

How sad what a clown has to do these days to stay current.

It looks like a gas, what with a high-tech freak show ("mini haunted house") that gave me a felling of being back on a gritty weedy midway.  Bring it on!  Yeah, pachyderm poo too.

Facial re-construction, painted on, for only five or ten bucks. At least if it doesn't get you a date, you can wash it off.

The acts? They looks strong, wheel of death, horizontal bars, silks, et all.

Not exactly for kids reports Flowers.  In fact, she says, "Don't bring your kids, basically."  Okay, there goes half your audience. 

Does Round Rock ring a bell with any of you? Are any of you there?

Birthplace of Barbette!

Truth is, these kinky "adult' circuses have been tried here and there, once in Tinseltown, but do not have long shelf lives.

However ... Declares the news person introducing Flowers' report, "you can catch a show that will excite you, thrill you, and scare you." 

And I believe her!  I want to go!  But I'd have to obtain a waiver from my governor Gruesome. And even then, half way through the program, he might rescind and order me out of the tent.

And how is your state doing?

Big Top Blues, and Lane Talburt to the Rescue: Yes, I've heard the rumors about Kelly-Miller closing ...

And I've talked to Brenda Rawls about it at their Hugo headquarters.

And I've e-mailed former general manager, Jim Royal.

And I have an e-mail out to John Ringling North.

And I've taken about as much as I can take, for now, with the continuing collapse of what is left of the American circus scene.  You will maybe understand.

I think we all feel the same confounding pain.

Eventually, I will wrap this into something, I guess.

In the meantime, check out Lane Talbert's heart-warming video of his visit to Bill Martin's Big E Circus Spectacular, complete with forthcoming interviews with Martin, a classy guy, I'd say, with one of my favorite ringmasters, John Kennedy Kane (so good to see him out of the role of BAC story teller), and with Jenny Vidbell and great clown guys, Steve Copeland and  Ryan Combs (I loved the mop across face, guys).
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7sy3mYlhN0

All so accepting of what is happening, all so understanding, non vindictive about it, just doing the best they can to make the most along the shrinking sawdust horizons.

Troupers we can all be proud of.

More sometime later ...

Oh, Happy Day! Grandma Returns to the Big Apple Circus

 Photos for New York Daily News by Andrew Savulich

So, let’s all sing a happy song for a change.  Like a glorious MGM sunrise on the big screen, comes a burst of good news, and let’s hope it marks more good news yet to come.

Grandma’s on her way back, to rejoin the re-organized  Big  Apple Circus!    And that’s, by far, the smartest move the new owners could have made.  I'm impressed.   New Yorkers now have a strong sentimental reason to return in droves as the show goes back on the road, come October at Lincoln Center.  Having stood in ticket lines and sat with local residents though several Big Apple shows under the tent in Queens, I came to learn of their enduring affection for one of America’s legendary clowns.  

Next smartest move the new owners, Sarasota-based Compact Partners, can make would be a royal reinstatement of Big Apple’s founder and personable ringmaster, Paul Binder.  Even after his official “retirement” in 2008,  Paul has labored tirelessly to help raise funds needed to keep the show on the road, season after season.  In my book, he is still the heart of this national treasure.

In ringmaster red, Paul would be the perfect host to greet loyal New York patrons back into the tent.  As a ringside announcer, he is one of the best, neither bombastic nor bland.  Informed, gracefully enthused, most of all— gracious.  He recently served as Celebrity Ringmaster for the New England Center for Circus Arts Circus Spectacular. 

Another big plus, where Paul a part of the mix, is the natural, understated chemistry in the ring that he and Barry Lubin (Grandma) share  The presence of the two would lend a feeling of a family tradition reunited.

Already, with Grandma signed, Compact will enjoy, and well deserves to enjoy, enormous respect from the city, and this move will give them, I believe, an emotional toehold into the town's very psyche.  Bravo, Compact!

In other promising news, down Baraboo way Circus World excitedly awaiting a new and bigger tent,  said to offer twice the seating capacity, for the summer circus shows. Says top man Scott O'Donnell  to the Baraboo Republic:  “We’re thrilled to have a tent with a larger capacity with the upcoming homecoming and all those crazy events – it’s going to be a well-used space.”

While the Ringling funeral trains rattle down tracks of finality, back to Sarasota for the last ride, while curious onlookers along the way rush in to snap selfies and to wonder why, and while others with a lifetime of memories shed tears over the most devastating chapter in American circus history, the circus world is not about to fall over and follow the Feld script.   The circus world is still finding ways to adapt, to downsize if necessary, this when an emerging class of more vocal Americans are beginning to make their more populist voices known in the court of public opinion, too long dominated by small bands of activists.  Say the new dissenters in growing mass, We want animal acts!

On this critical subject, writes Barry Lubin on his Facebook, as quoted in Circus Report: “There is only one American circus that god rid of elephants last may and is closing this May. It’s a big one for sure. It was my home base for 5 seasons.  I feel terrible for those losing their jobs .... but may I make a suggestion: If yah like circus, go see other wonderful shows crisscrossing the American landscape these days.  The living breathing American art form we call circus ain’t dead!

Show us the way, Grandma!

Baraboo Shelters Fallen Big Tops ... Wild Animals Face New York Eviction ... Bloody Buffoons a Curse on Jolly Jesters ... It’s Not Been a Pretty Circus Season, Kids ... Cry, Clown, Cry! ...

Scott O'Donnell and Dave SaLoutos review documents received from Cole Bros. Circus

“Looks like the fat lady really sang for Cole Bros.  So sad!” e-mailed Barry Lipton.  Yes, Barry, so very very sad.   With the season over, now the question is, who will go out next year?   How close, I shudder to think, are the likes of Carson & Barnes and Kelly-Miller to the brink?

At least there is Baraboo, where old circuses go to die gracefully, their once vibrant wonders still wonderful to true blue fans of Hemingway’s Ageless Delight.  Remember when going to the circus was a GUILT-FREE amusement?  Go watch Ring of Fear or The Greatest Show on Earth.  Behold the audience un-ambivalent,  and savor their innocent engagement -- embracing believers, all, in Circus Day.

Into the protective barns of Circus Wold Museum went collections from Cole Bros. Circus and the Royal Hanneford shows, both now officially off the road.  The Cole treasure includes attendance records, marketing notes, press kits, 130 video tapes and blueprints, and “a lot more,” reported the Baraboo News Republic.

At the receiving end, museum director Scott O’Donnell delighted to be adding a significant trove of recent circus history to his holdings.  “It was a challenging year for some circuses,” he told the News, “but thankfully they didn’t toss everything in the dumpster.”  Scott has a gift of some 28 filing cabinets and nearly 40 boxes to open.  The catch spans a good 25 years, some of it extending back to 1978.

But the donation gives Cole’s long slow closing a  painful finality.  I can only hope that Johnny Pugh will talk to somebody about what he has had gone through the last difficult seasons.  Lane Talburt, where are you?  Please, get your camera down to DeLand!  Surely Johnny will talk to you? 

Ringling elephants en route to Madison Square Garden in the 1950s.

First, it was the elephants. Now, if the New York council has its way, other wild animals will be banned from circus rings as well.   New York Post none to tickled with a city council wanting “to run the circus. Strangely appropriate, isn’t it?” 

Egging the NY Council on to codify the proposed ban is a group, NYCLASS, that fought for a ban on horse carriages in Central Park!   Why do I have a feeling that I am back in Berkeley.

Back to the Post:  “Here’s hoping the more adult lawmakers find the spin to ignore the animals rights activists.  If the council insists on messing with the circus, it’s proving itself a pack of clowns.”

Ah yes, a pack of clowns, remember them?   Now tagged with the “C” word — CREEPY – many are being shunned from parades, losing out on clown bookings at kid parties, even accosted verbally by screaming hysterics.  “It's not funny being a clown these days,” said Gerald Herdegen (Cho Cho) to the Wall Street Journal.  Some risk arrest in the act of performing.  The mere sight of a funny-now-creepy face can cause a crowd to panic.  The very word “clown” on a poster can cause screaming reaction.

"I am a comedy character," says English Clown Alex Morley, in his sixth year with Russells International Circus.  He may be wearing less makeup, as, indeed, other jesters are doing in these dispiriting times.  He is hoping to reverse the public's negative attitude toward clowning in general.  "Killer clowns are making people afraid."

So, we have fewer animal acts.  And clowning is in peril.  What next?  Vulgar Human Daredevils?  Humans even?

An adult in the tent worth quoting:   Drama critic and perceptive circus fan and follower, Chris Jones, of the Chicago Tribune, whom I believe speaks for many of us: “Often I've sat wondering if that tiger or that elephant is happy, musing to myself how you possibly judge animal happiness, especially given the Darwinian alternative of the wild. And what of those circus animals of a type that have centuries-old working relationships with humans? Would they really be happier put out to pasture? Who could say? They look like they're having fun. And since I'm recounting those justifications, there is the further question of when some kids would ever otherwise see a big cat. Is it not conceivable a conservationist could be nurtured right there at the Greatest Show on Earth?”

END RINGERS: Target to stop selling clown masks ... Are you afraid of the dark? That means you are more creative, so says a survey ... Allen awful, Woody's latest stillborn, Cafe Society, is so anemically bad, if you do rent, skip trying to watch, but play the hapless flick as music, and enjoy many great old Rodgers and Hart tunes in the background ... California banning bull hooks, the kill bill signed by Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown ... Garden Bros. Circus now retiring its elephants ...  The retreat goes on .. and on ... and on ...   What will next season hold? ...

Thanks to cyber courier Don Covington, for linking me to some of this information.