Legendary Breakthrough at the Circus--- Dancing At Last Holds Its Own

How could it be?  How could a group of dancers ever hold their own against, if not exceed the talents of the best circus acts on the bill?

Mine eyes have seen a revelation. for the first time, four-star choreography in the ring.  

If you live long enough, you may be surprised in ways you could never have expected.  Over the years, I have seen many kinds of dancing in league with clowns and elephants. Some was good enough as filler between acts and prop changes. Some fairly pedestrian. Some, well, at least lively.  But not of a caliber you would expect to find in a professional venue centered in dance and ballet.

Until now. I'm almost afraid to re-watch the You Tube on which I discovered this, for fear I might have over-reacted. But let me leave that for now and ride the waves of something that deserves top drawer respect

These nimble dames are jazzy.  They're funky.  I see saucy shades of Fosse.

The acts between the footwork? Mostly good enough. Three stand outs include a cradle casting duo and a lovely low-wire ballerina who performs both softly and intrepidly well, and on her toes. But here is where the dancers, flapping large wings, messed up my sight lines.  I strained to see the star, and wanted to scream, off with their wings!

Weakest of all, ringmaster overkill. Best of all, wrapping the show with a smartly placed powerhouse of tumblers forming pyramids and individually taking turns thundering around the ring trough somersaults and flip flops. I could feel a hurricane of horses sweeping me away.

Okay, name of the circus?  Candyland 2024 from Zippos. A forty five minute show, easy to look up on You Tube.

 2.17.25

Cirque du Desperate? Show Now Touts Story Line and Paper Animals, Leaves Critics in a Muddle ...

Oh, those glorious days gone by when Cirque du  Soleil  need only post its name in suave newspaper ads, and the world would storm the phones to secure the priciest tickets.

And..........................now ......ECHO.  You may clip a discount coupon from your local newspaper, if you still have one and are a subscriber. This oddly and  odorouslly unfaltering discovery I came upon  by accident, in the Sunday edition of our local rag. Notice how the Montreal monster is not pushing the predictable slate of familiar acts, but, instead, a story line that reaches in many directions and features "our main female heroine, Future."  Music by /Wagner?

The amateur-looking ad, if you can read it, promises "a tale of relations and evolution's ... combining poetry, stagecraft, daring acrobatics, and technology... exploring the delicate balance between people. animals, and the world we share."  And only one word about circus -- acrobatics.

Having examined a couple of reviews, a recurring theme bleeds distress over a hodgepodge of action. Both give high marks to some of the acts, and yet differ over story elements, one terming them "compelling" despite dolling out only two stars. Both end up in a  muddle of disappointment, unable to sing Cirque's praises. Here are excerpts from the notices:

Joshua Chong in a 2-star Toronto Star review: "Echo feels like a dull whimper, quite literally confined to a box [and ]is far from the glorious comeback that Cirque du Soleil intended. Despite some stunning individual routines and a compelling story line, Echo is torn by competing artistic visions that prevent the show, [which] never comes together as a thrilling whole."   

Aisling Murphy in  Intermission:  "An echo of circuses past. Two creative visions come to a head in ECHO, and they don’t gel particularly well. On one hand, you have the ultra-sleek box and the treasures inside; on the other, you have a mysterious world of paper animals infiltrated by a blue little girl and her blue dog. Most Cirque du Soleil shows tend to wield a thin story, but ECHO is close to non-existent beyond the initial offer of a girl and her pet on an odyssey of some sort."

The show seems to be doing better with consumer reviews, but here we might be traipsing through a minefield of shilling. Luckily for me and this post, I came upon a 34 minute You Tube sampler ...

"The Best of ECHO" from Cirque du Soleil 

So I had a chance to see for myself what they are up to, that is, with respect only to acts, for there is no trace of the story telling pushed in the grim, grainy newspaper graphic above    The acrobatic action, house acts I suppose, is more roughly athletic than finished.  Iron jaw and hair hang, webs and risley and casting,  with teeter boarders getting the longest workout, refreshing to a point of redundancy.  They are stressing large ensembles, though by far the biggest  hit of the clips shown were two clown-like fellows competing to build the tallest stack of cardboard boxes.  A four-star  hoot.  A great build that goes a bit weak when the stack falls but does not come apart.

If that's the best of ECHO, what is the rest of ECHO?  I have to assume Shakespeare over sawdust. 

Here is what stuck me the most about this leaden opus.  It is cold. It is dark, literally dark. It is abstract and alienating.  Most of the cast have painted faces or wear masks.  I can well understand why the two media reviewers filed acute reservations . One of the Yelper raves talked up never having felt so satisfyingly engulfed in the  atmosphere. It is heavy, yes, I can agree, except that, unlike him, I wanted out.  This was not the feeling I recently got when I  viewed parts of other CDS shows in a one hour You Tube sampler. It seems that their reigning esthetic of the moment is to feature many people doing similar things, rather then giving focus to well honed world class acts.  The enchanting sampler left me open to taking in another Cirque show.  After watching ECHO, that desire is gone.  In fact, I would sooner go to Ringling than to Cirque.

About that embarrassing ad.  What next?  Cirque du phone room calling? 

And the Winners Are! ...

GOLD  Turkmenistan’s Djiguite riders, China’s National Acrobatic Troupe, and the gravity-defying Flying Caballeros.

SILVER The Scandinavian Boards and the Martini Family’s enchanting exotic animals brought awe to the ring. Pastelito and Junior also earned this distinction, proving their comedic brilliance to be world-class.

BRONZE The Triple Breath High Wire trio, with their serene mastery of the tightrope, joined Duo Acero and Wolfgang Lauenburger in this category.

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!!!

Broadway Says No to Circus ... Might London Say Yes?

* Updated, 10.18

First, the lowdown.  Every year on Times Square, around a dozen new musicals hit the boards, all dreaming of Tony acclaim and turn away crowds. Roughly speaking, for every five new shows that open, four of them will go turkey before the season ends.  

Water for the Elephants was one of last year’s new contenders, and it opened to a wild array of warring notices, heaven-sent euphoria to hell-bent fury.  Variety proclaimed it “spellbinding.  The New York Times, no surprise, gave it a Critic's Pick.  It was thoroughly snubbed at the Tony's.  Among the testily insulted, Rex the Reid declared, "I thought I had seen the worst of what the 2024 season would bring. I was wrong. I had not seen Water for Elephants yet. Now I have. It can’t get any deadlier than this."

The more tempered notices in between suggested that,  even if the story lines were leaden and plodding, the circus acts,which wowed 'em, might be good enough to merit your patronage. 

Ah yes, and therein lies the two-word problem,“circus acts.’

I have long contended that people do not flock to to the Great White Way to see circus acts. They go to see Broadway Shows, and Broadway shows have virtually never achieved lift off over sawdust and spangles.  The one arguable exception was Barnum, but it drew its gusto from the Cy Coleman Score, Jim Dale's charming agility. Story lines?  Some may remember it for P.T's  wistful infatuation with his star attraction away from circus, singer Jenny Lind.  Circus action was incidental.

Over to  you, London ...

Over there, across the bony pond, songs may hold star power.  In London town under a 700 seat tent, a new kind of singing show centered in or around circus, inspired by the Hugh Jackman flick, The Greatest Showman, is winning early crowd enthusiasm.  Called Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular,  from a five-minute video sampler, it appears to be drilling down into the film’s highly popular score, whose cast album won a Grammy and  sold 5.3 million copies worldwide. Show has been extended through next March

* The reviews?  With Broadway World giving them, overall, a 67% positive rating, they veer towards the tepid.  None are close to scathing,  and a few give the show's circus content the highest marks.  I can see here what might be called circus acts with popular songs, which can work.   In 1956, John Ringling North featured many of the songs of Broadway composer Frank Loesser, spread throughout the wide-ranging score. 

And, yet, there's more:  Following this theater-circus thread, Disney over here still has in the works an adaptation of  The Greatest Showman.  One might wonder how true they will remain to a largely  fictional take on Barnum’s real life that was roundly and rightly panned by knowing critics.  If they try restoring history, they risk producing something  that ill-fits the film's premise and songs.  They should give as much serious consideration to the fate (to be) of Come Alive! as they no doubt have to Water for Elephants.

Big tops will go up, and new Broadway shows will unfold, each in their own sphere.

A True Trapeze Queen Shamefully Ignored By History

 

 Update, 5/28

Our winner had checked in!  He posted under The Magic Guys, but somehow, his full message did not come through.  His answers was:

Latvian aerialist Lena Jourdan, of the Flying Jordans

Congrats, Magic Guys!

End of update. 

Still ignored by writers and historians who should know better: Lena Jordan, not Ernest Clarke, was the first flyer to turn a triple somersault on the trapeze.  Most sources place the feat on Jordan Bros. Circus in Australia, 1897. But according to the Guinness Book of Records, Jordan actually turned the first triple in New York city with the Flying Jordans, an American troupe, in 1896, at Koster & Bial's Theatre 

Not so fast, says Wikipedia, claiming that the New York record has not been officially recognized. Rather,  In May 1897, Jordan, aged 16, "became the first recorded person to perform a triple somersault during a routine in Sydney, Australia."

The Circus Ring of Fame in Sarasota propounded the myth by ignoring  Jordan altogether, in order to give  Antoinette Concello credit for first female to turn the triple. 

How does the Circus Historical Society check in on this?  I once followed a thread on their history message board, all the way to a contributor who confirmed that, indeed, the honor goes to Jordan. 

Circus of a Hodgepodge: Roncalli At Big Apple Sparkles in Spots, Stumbles through Weak Direction and Focus

Uupdate: 12.29  See End Ringers ***

You Tube Review
Journey to the Rainbow
Roncali Theater-Circus and Big Apple Circus
At Lincoln Center through mid-January

Tickets: $19.95 – $89.95 ringside, plus $4.95 fee. VIP packages available, from $130, plus $7.95 fee

      
     BE FOREWARNED: I could not clearly see a couple of acts behind a tent tower, blame it on the guy taking the film illegally, who put himself and thus me, too, behind it.  So, this must be considered a rough first draft of what might have been a more valid review, had I been there in person to see it for myself. Nor do I find the names of the acts on the website, thus the few missing here. And any of my comments are subject to revision upon discovery of lifelines being used. Okay, so here we go —  on with another stab at another kind of variation on circus!

    REVIEWING THE COMPLETE two hour program, excluding intermission, what struck me the most, given all the gush about it from fans and the adoring  New York Times critic  is how ineptly staged and paced it is. Then again, how do you direct such a scattered hodgepodge?  In its favor, the lineup now and then sparkles with some noteworthy turns, then slogs along through sluggish prop changes, fashion show walkarounds, prolonged bows and milked encores, and extensive dancing sequences in-between, as to make it feel as if the circus is sharing the ring with an out-of-work dance troupe. Nor will the moderately amusing old-school European clowning, too much of it staged in the seats, thrill everybody straining to see it. Terrible sight lines!

            Not any old hoofers.  They're the "Broadway Dancers"                                         

    SHOW HAS A LIVELY BAND (even Ringling no longer has one) hearkening back in style to older fashioned, and  rises on occasion to ride the drama inherent in certain of the acts — reminding us of the primal force of unencumbered circus.

     CHASING BUBBLES: At the outset, the program proposes to take us on a journey to the rainbow, which, I assume, means the dazzling multitude of colorful lighting effects that splash in and out --- not all the other extraneous fluff, together consuming  a good half hour more than need be. 

 

     THE CIRCUS  IN THIS MORASS  impressively offers a number of winning entries that manage to break through the fru fru and give us what we came for.  They include ---- envelopes, please! — Geoffrey Berhault a fellow working on two cris crossing low wires, executing both backward and forward somersaults and showing a flair I would like to have seen more of  — after spending almost as much time before the act, setting it up himself; vaulting acrobatics; a captivating juggler named Geoffrey Berhault who wows the crowd; and, top of the heap, a single trap flyer who ranks an A  rating on my sheet.  Here, the band gives him the kind of dramatic scoring that such an act deserves. The show’s high point, and smartly placed near the end. Curiously, I can't find a photo of this singular performer.

     FOR NOVELTY the enormous floating "basket”, as they are calling this newer number, with a bike rider inside it circling above, again tickled  my fancy, as it did at Zoppe. This particular  basket seemed to tip a little more ominously  from side to side, hinting at a tension payoff that I did not get from Zoppe. And such an utterly pleasant prop.   Watch it rise in the extremes and take off in circus rings around the word.

    RONCALLI'S STATED MISSION in Journey, "to embody a new kind of circus that is less death-defying and more artistic," is perfectly in sync with menagerie-free trends.  Then why oh why, the most unexpected feature in the form of three polar  bears on all fours lumbering into the ring, to dabble on and around teeter-boards?  Talk about in-your-face bizarre. HELLO000? Sorry, those animals are no longer allowed in here!  No, they are not real animals, but costumed performers, which, what, makes them perfectly acceptable to a woke world that sickened to the point of knee jerk intolerance over the slightest media reports of alleged circus animal cruelty?  Such a fitting insertion to a jumbled parade that can’t make up its mind what it really wants to be  I’d say old time variety stage revue.

    GO FOR THE BEST MOMENTS and be patient. It’s the most we can hope for in  these war torn days under our rattled  big tops.   In my book, Big Apple Circus won’t fully rebound until it can put on a show successful enough at the ticket windows to spread its wares like all commercial circuses do. Since when did a successful property that opened in New York not, in making it there, make it anywhere --- as the song goes?  BAC once did, all the way up to  Boston.  I remember seeing them in May at Cunningham Park, the idyllic setting. They have become slaves to the allure of Lincoln Center and Broadway.     

    END RINGERS: Who directs what?  There are so many CEOs and director titles between the two companies, is ANYBODY really in charge?  There’s Marty LaSalle, former BAC juggler, listed as BAC CEO. There's Patrick Philadelphia, Roncalli Company Group CEO, given credit for directing.  But  then  there’s Geoffrey Berhault, who also gets directing credit in another write up.  No wonder the fractured result ... Any circus is far better seen  in person than on video, which is why I am holding back and watching the complete Ringling show on You Tube, but will wait for it to come this way ... I suppose we can thank these interlopers with cameras making the movies, and consider that You Tube allows them through some sort of consent by the circuses themselves ... So .... what next, You Tube?  Oh, I know what next.  I saw a complete Russian Circus from 2018, at the Old Circus arena in Moscow. Talk about a stunning rebuke to the prevailing makeup of U.S. and UK shows.  You wouldn't  believe.  Oh,you already saw it!?  Hot tip: Speak "Russian circus 2018 on You Tube" into your Comcast mike

*** If you watch the Russian video, beware:  Show starts off with a ponderous and overly long cage act and early on, wire walking performers strapped to life lines galore.  But from there on out, it takes of.

Brit Circus Kings Keep Rings Rocking with Foreign Talent, Aggressive Showmanship. Two Giants Among Them, Now Gone ...

Circus Funtasia

The old and the new, one going, another coming.  First, to acknowledge here the passing of “Doktor John Haze,” as John Hayes Mabley was known, a dynamo showman known for his hard-edged Circus Extreme that fielded  UK’s biggest big top.
          

                                          Circus Extreme

Haze was considered the nation’s reigning circus mogul after the late Gerry Gottle, with whom he founded another long-running  hit —  their runaway success, Circus of Horrors,  billed the “world’s longest running alternative circus show.” Thirty years on, and still playing to sold out crowds. 

 

 Doktor Haze

 

Modern-Day Barnums: Cottle and Haze

A full menu showman not of the Montreal class, the dexterous Haze promoted a truly daring stunt over the sainted Thames, balancing 16 men 150 feet above the famed river in a “human mobile.” Had one of them slipped , the whole lot would have gone down.  Actually, going soft here, I am supposing that water may form a safer landing surface than your standard trapeze net — that is, for those who know how to swim.  A chilling stunt, nonetheless.  It speaks to the man’s gritty, knock 'em dead showmanship.
 
At 12, Haze teamed up with his dad --- just released from prison (reasons not given) –  to join Circus Della Beck in Ireland.  There he learned how to swallow fire, and how to fake reading gullible  minds in a crowd.   A thread here?  Again, echoes of the tough midways that once prefaced earthy tent shows of spangled glories.  They gave you the dirt. They gave you the stars.  Ballet and theatre interlopers will never understand.

In his random early 20s, Haze dabbled in rock, forming Flash Harry, its players turning circus-type tricks while riffing on.

These British impresarios strike me as adaptive, flexible, and prone to inventing as they go. And maybe more open to collaboration. What bothers/disappoints/puzzles  me about them is their nearly total deference to the no-animals format (three shows still carry domestics) .  Maybe they know something. They’ve produced shows abroad, and they’ve managed UK tours of both the Chinese and Moscow state troupes. Haze for a time ran the latter. You have an idea, comrade? Heck with the “C” word —  Let’s talk! Da?

During the crippling Corona look-downs, Haze led a campaign to unlock them, clear up to the front door of 10 Downing Street. Boris! Are you in there? Boris, beleaguered big tops calling! Boris  said yes, UNLOCK, and a nation of circuses were spared collective implosion.
.
Okay, your turn, Tracy Jones!  Her take on the biz  tells of a nation weak on the talent needed to energize the rings of today’s successfully produced shows.  Sounds a whole lot like over here?

Tracy slipped into the life by accident, when taking care of horses for the French stunt rider, Gerard Naprous. When he landed a four-week gig in Gandey’s Circus, she followed him as a horse groom, and fell for the whole party.  Told mum, “I’m going to join the circus.” Mum  put her and bag on a train.  She stayed with Gandeys for the next twenty eights years. Phillip the paymaster threw blades within inches of her fearless face, and she took them. “I trusted him completely.”  She learned the basics of trapeze and of trick riding on horseback.  Toured with  Gandey’s Circus through Shanghai, Honk Kong, and Dubai.  

All of which well-grounded our Tracy to start up her very own show, Circus Funtasia, now celebrating its 10th anniversary.  The ring is gone, in its place, a rectangular stage.  Our ringmistress is  giddy and remains optimistic. 

On Saturday nights, the tent is reset for the adult-only Cirque du Vulgar. I love it! A clever play on the Montreal formula. I can imagine a legion of restless adults sick and tired of du Precious and flocking to kink and gore for du relief.  

Biggest problem running Funtasia?  Tracy wishes there were more (like, how about a few) Brits willing to join up. “It’s really, really  hard to find British people who want to travel on a circus.... We’re in the ring one moment, selling popcorn the next." More than that, a dearth of skills and training among the hometown pool. “We [also] have a Cuban troupe of gymnasts because in Cubans they train them from very young age.”

Those communist powers do have a way with steel-handed restraint that fosters the disciplines needed to produce competitive thrills.  Now, without naming shows (you will know who I am talking about) in freer places we have kids from today’s snowflake generations being harnessed to safety ropes while performing relatively simple feats barely as high off the ground as a low wire.  Blame the whole damn thing on the Russian Revolution of 1917.
 
Tracy’s strategic planning for the next ten years? “Just carry on and enjoy every minute of it.”

Ah, what a lovely note to go out on.

A young Gerry Cottle starting out. How I wish I had met him.  

Acknowledging my sources here-- but one: All of the above and the quotes were gleaned from Douglas McPherson’s fine profiles of Haze and Jones, as published in London’s  The Stage.

Gong Show and Up: American Unicycle Wonder Wesley Williams Wows Moscow, Declared an "Idol" at Russian Circus Festival

 from 10.11.19

 

Okay, let my pride of prophecy parade:  Because I gave this young American circus star stellar coverage on this here blog after discovering him on a TV's The Gong Show, I was elated to read this in the latest issue of Spectacle Magazine on-line, just out:

Young American Enjoys Success at World Festival of Circus Arts in Moscow

"Unicyclist Wesley Williams represented the United States at the 2019 World Festival of Circus Art 'IDOL' in Moscow, Russia. Only 20 of the best acts from around the world were chosen to perform at this prestigious circus competition.  Out of all the acts that participated Williams received one of the highest honors, The Main Prize Bronza 'Idol.'

This marked Williams first appearance anywhere outside the United States.  He called it "an honor just to be invited to the competition.  Although it was a super sweet feeling to see that all my blood, sweat, and tears and years of preparation for this moment paid off.”

Wesley, you gave me everything I hope for and rarely get in a circus act these days, topped with a show-stopping climax on that sky-high unibike of yours.  Talk about raw heart-pounding peril. All performed with great classy showmanship and down-home humility.  Best of all, you put yourself and us on the map in probably the most revered circus ring in the world --  MOSCOW.

Great going, kid!

10.11.19

Defendng the Monte Carlo Circus Judges: Two Knowing Voices Check In

 Derring-do on a string: The Cassellys

A dance skating pro once told me, “You don’t have to be good to win, you just have to be the best.”

I won that way once.

These words came helpfully to mind after receiving an e-mail from Don Covington, offering his and Bill Hall’s high regard for the Rene Casselly horse riding act at the Monte Carlo Circus Festival in January. This, in reaction to my critique, At The Big Top Oscars, six posts below. The only act to take a Gold Clown, I had found it— based on the YouTube of their complete act — hardly worthy of such an honor (two big tricks botched and the use of a mechanic).

Okay, but let’s say one could argue they were the best of the pack, which, in a way, is what Don, joining Bill, advances in his persuasive reporting “No other act matched its impact.” Audience reception was overwhelming, I’ll grant you that.  

Don pointed me to a video recommended by Bill , the one which I had already seen three times. But I watched it again, just to be sure.  It does not change my thinking.  And then I watched the movie Ring of Fear, knowing that in it the Hannefords appear.  On, what a contrast.   What a perfectly sublime pleasure watching the crisp upright, agile riding of the family’s comedian.  They had the element that compels -- momentum.       

Onto another issue,  Bello Nock.  In my coverage of Gold Clowns given out over the years, I stupidly implied that Bello, one of only four recipients, was not really an American performer. Oh, really David?  “I would argue that Bello Nock is 100% American,” wrote Don.  Okay, upon googling up  Bello, there it was, and I should have known better: Born in Sarasota, and thus raised here,  which was bound to have influenced his artistic development.  As advanced  by  Don,  “His brand of comedy is unmistakably American.”

I stand impressively corrected. Thank you, Don!

END RINGERS: Wesley Williams at Monte Carlo could not even  get a bronze medal from the judges, but he landed what Europeans once considered the most honored place in the world to perform: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Turns out,  in the high-flying audience at Monte Carlo was  Kenneth Fled, back in his prime scouting acts for his comeback edition, uncorking this fall.  The Feld of Felds offered the Wesley of Williams a contract.  Reads the show’s website:  “We’re SO excited to announce that world-renowned unicyclist Wesley Williams 'the One Wheel Wonder,' is joining the Greatest Show on Earth.”
 

Circus King Delivers Sawdust, Spangles, and Mayhem

Book Review

The Killing of Lord Sanger, by Karl Shaw

Icon Books -- now available on Amazon Kindle. The book edition is due out March 4

Mourned by the multitudes in the wake of his shocking death, did Britain's Barnum really deserve their adoring accolades?  An enthralling new book by Karl Shaw, set in circus land UK during the Edwardian era, tells two interlocking stories, one of the legendary circus king, the other about the search for the  man who murdered him.The Killing of Lord George opens our eyes on what it was really like  trouping through the British Isles during an age of brawling competition between shows, when the survival of the fittest one season was no guarantee of the same for the next.

As for the morbid murder mystery, told in alternating chapters, this makes for a different kind of read which some may find off-putting -- back and forth between sawdust rings and homicide investigations. Oddly, as I returned to each, I was keener on its side of the narrative moving forward. A rare two for one.

George Sanger carried on the lavish spectacles established by circus founder, Phillip Astley, once the latter was gone.  He started out in his father’s circus as  a magician, and would became UK’s greatest showman, according to a Times of London obit quoted in  this admirably researched bio.  Sanger and his brother, John, at one time had a multitude of circus rings circling Europe.  All of which earned him high praise from The New York Times, calling him "the English Barnum."

 I knew nothing of the man himself other than his prolongation of the Astley legacy, and here his life comes suddenly spilling out, as messy as a clogged up sink faucet not unplugged in over a hundred years.  Which makes this man a difficult character to like. Brace yourself.  Among many devious attributes, Sanger was a chronic liar who may have self-anointed himself a Lord. He possessed a natural — or shrewdly staged — gift for philanthropy, so widespread as to enjoy the status of  “a national treasure, loved and respected by all,” in the words of Shaw.  It’s the darker side of Mr. Sanger that spreads gloom through the pages. 

Away from the spotlights and glitter, let’s start on the home front.  “He never let go of his hatred for his son in law,” writes Shaw, the sin being that his daughter had dared to wed a headline performer with a  “celebrated rival.”  This anger applied to other relatives along the way.

On the animal front, in a court of law today Sanger would likely have been hauled in and easily convicted of willfully ordering the killing of an old animal to serve as a prop in a cynical publicity stunt.

Savage Task Master 

Onto the shows:  The prim, compact circus lord could turn into a quality-control monster against underachieving performers. “He was sadistic if an artist failed during a performance.” reveals Shaw, to whose credit should go honors for such unfaltering attention, for it surely does nothing to gild his otherwise sunny portrait of the man's boundless humanity and good will to others.   For instance, take Sanger's treatment of a young wire walker who fell from her perch more than once. In stormy reaction, the offended boss “offered her a penknife from his pocket and said ‘here, don’t cut your throat, cut your bloody head off!’ Scores of performers came and went, and only the bravest or most loyal stayed the course. Those who fell short had their contracts terminated with a short: ‘Call yourself an actor? get off my stage!'"

Animal cruelty?  How about human cruelty?  I know how callously heartless circus owners can be, but I can’t think of one quite this sociopathic.

Perhaps The Killing of Lord George could have spent more time prose painting the man’s laudatory posters and programs, and the name dropping could had been  more elaborately fleshed out.  There is not a single image of circus, or the word itself, on the book’s cover.  It’s biggest failure, in my view,  is a glaring lack of full-page illustrations, preferably in color, that scream CIRCUS.  Grainy black and white images of news stories, diagrams and photos serve the story well, but may fail to captivate a wider audience.  

Sleuthing the sawdust shadows for tales of hardship and mayhem, Shaw cunningly compels with gripping accounts of the sudden dangers inherent in tent trouping.  It’s a miracle that none of the Sanger's were burned to death in the cinder box wagons in which they lived.   Thieves and rivals wishing to loot and defile could sneak up from every which direction.  Inglorious weather, bum crowds,  and periodic outbreaks of cholera, shuttered circus folk into shivering, food-deprived retreat.  In the worst of seasons, we read, some literally “starved to death.” Really?

The Lion Queen's Favorite

 For Anglophile history buffs in particular, the book is intricately placed in the times of Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria, both circus fans who make impressive contributions.  The Queen "had a weakness for lion taming acts.” In her diary, she wrote "one can never see too often."  She doted with delight over the wild animal displays of  Sanger’s young wife, Nellie, seen above, and this earned the show two command performances before her royal majesty.  

Sanger's obvious envy for his American rivals who competed with him on his own turf, mainly William F. Cody and Barnum & Bailey, produced a torrent of  petty unflattering scorn and ridicule, some published in his memoir. "There is nothing that American showman have ever done that Englishmen have not done first and not done better." Blatantly false.  For one thing, the failed three ring format that Sanger claimed to have first used in 1860 was far better used when Barnum & Bailey took it on the road in 1881 -- if, in fact, they had "stolen" the idea from Sanger, as he claimed. There is insufficient evidence to support the boast.  Another grandiose lie?

Another Man on Another Night

The darker side of our problematic genius comes to a grizzly end when he is murdered by an axe and razor, the most likely suspect being a young man who had shared his bedroom by night, until being ejected.  Shaw covers this in a strangely incomplete manner. Explains he, ever so politely without ever dropping the H word,  the relationship between the two “followed a predictable course.  He (Sanger)  would quickly form a very close attachment with his new favorite, shower him with presents and take him wherever he went.  In Herbert Cooper’s case at least, this intimacy included sharing a bedroom.  Then, just as quickly, George would drop him and replace him with another.”

Such was the fate of the tall and handsome, 29-year old  Cooper  “usurped in Sanger’s affections by Arthur Jackson, just as surely as Herbert himself had been a substitute for someone else. One day he was the old man's special friend,  the next he was effectively ostracized, excommunicated from the Park Farm inner sanctum.”

Notice how much fun our author seems to have over that last line, which only makes it more incredible that he would not have at least raised the subject of a homosexual union or fetish of some kind, if only to raise the issue and put it to rest. I was left fairly dumbfounded.

Shaw defers to the press, plenty interested in Sanger’s relations with Cooper.   Some  newspapers suspected revenge being the motive, had Cooper in fact been the assailant.  In the end, sketchy testimony leaves a muddled impression, although Shaw wishes us to believe otherwise. That is, that the killer was not Cooper.  The Times at the time believed he was.  Others believe it still to be a mystery.

There is much to hold your interest in this offbeat treat.  I have never dug deep enough to realize how the Brits were as drawn to the kink and gore of side shows as we were over here. Another topic that held my fascination was the  intersection between British and American circus owners over both their rivalries and the exchange and/or leasing of each other’s ideas, with vividly described cameos from likes of P.T. Barnum and William Buffalo Bill Cody. After all, we and they were in the same business when “elephants were the perpetual Victorian circus favorites.”  Which makes this book a must-read for serious scholars and lovers of circus history.

I’ll go out with a teaser.  You could  never guess how Cooper’s life came to an end.

Shaw is also the author of The First Showman: The Extraordinary Life of Philip Astley.

Memo to Masterpiece.  If you can’t see the drama in this, you don't deserve to be funded.   Over to you, ITV?   

first posted 1.9.23

re posted 1.10.25 

At the Big Top Oscars: What Defines Monte Carlo Gold? Jaw Dropping Judging at Latest Fest Crowns Mediocrity, Snubs High Achievement

Here I go, treadling on sacred ground, hoping you will go with me.   There are people out there whose opinions I respect who will disagree with me, and I hope you/they will check in.  I was not there.  Maybe you were.
                  
We are talking what makes an act worthy of a Gold Clown.  Is it merely best of show?   No, because often the festival hands out multiple Gold Clowns.  So it’s not a true competition.

Is it an act marked by a legendary trick never before witnessed, such as the quad?  Such as a new high in the number of clubs or hoops kept in motion by the juggler? Or a mode of showmanship so inventive as to in itself please?   If this were so, then it could be argued that the American lad on his wondrous unicycle, Wesley Williams, should have earned a clown of some kind for the unprecedented height of his single wheeler.  But he did not, so it is not always the ground breaking trick.  

Then what is it?  In fact, I haven’t a clue what makes these judges tick, other than a mixture of interests seeming to favor  the most respected names — or countries — in the business.   Some years back, spectators were outraged over an act from Vietnam getting the royal cold shoulder.

So, let’s take a look at this years sole recipient of the Gold Clown, from Germany, horse riders Rene Casselly, sister Marylou and their partner Quincy Azzario, seen above. I watched the complete act on You tube, three times. This is the one that clocks in at 13.08   It starts out  with promise, but gradually runs low on  energy.   Overall, the entire display included time-consuming before and after ground acrobatics that made no sense; in fact ironically, the highly polished acro-dancing may only have set up an unflattering contrast to what followed on horseback. I was left distinctly wanting. May I explain?

1.  PACING.  Slow and plodding, looking more like a labored work in progress not yet quite ready for prime time.  I recalled the gusto and comedy of the Hannefords before my eyes, the thundering Cristianis in photos.  And how the  Russian Cossack riders whirled around their steeds as their steeds whirled around the sawdust.

2.  EXECUTIONS: Some  tricks were flubbed or struggled through, or simply failed. The head-to-head stand on horseback is theoretically stunning , I can’t recall such a feat, if only it had lasted more than half a second. It did not hold, and either a trick holds, even after a heroic wavering to save it, think Colleano on the wire  — or it folds, as this one did. Tantamount to a quad flyer missing connection. Another failing end point: Rene turned a double somersault, only to land as much on his hands as on  his feet.  There is a word that comes to mind — agility.  Sad to concede I saw too little of it here.  Are you still with me?  

Emphatically triumphal executions, I believe, are infinitely satisfying and the single most defining moment of any great  circus trick or act. The artist either succeeds or does not.   In this regard, I was surprised to read in a rich in-depth write up on the festival’s “fairy-tale history” by Raffaele de Ritis, of his giving the three German riders the highest marks for  “a polished anthology of acrobatic rarities, balancing absolute technical brilliance with a smooth, easy going presentation.”  Absolute technical brilliance?  In fact,  I saw the very opposite.

3.  LIFELINES.  Worst of all, Rene’s riders use a mechanic for at least one of their items, which spells the instant death of risk-taking integrity. Please, will somebody at Monte Carlo beg, urge, push, bride the Princess to mandate that, henceforth, no act resorting to lifelines will qualify to be considered for a Gold Clown?  Let them compete for the honor of Silver, the validation of Bronze.  Rene’s ground choreography and the mechanic epitomize that murky intersection between circus and ballet that we are living through, where each lessens and dilutes the impact of the other’s core elements. Which is why, I believe, shows like the gutsy Brit Circus Xtreme are actually more like the legit circus in its pre PETA, pre CDS heydays.  (Read Helen Stoddart, kids)

So ... was it Rene’s inclusion of two tricks alleged by de Ritis  never to have been seen before in any circus – a three-high balance on two horses, and a double somersault on horseback?  Might the content alone have won the judges?  Perhaps.

Back to Wesley Williams, without whom these posts I am doing  on Monte Carlo might never have happened, one thing leading to another.. I have stronger reason to believe  that the showmanly Wesley was incredibly snubbed.  Not enough ballet?  Not from the right family? The right country?   

More reason to rue the absence of outside critics like Lz Arratoon and Ernest Albrecht.  I would love to have read what they might have written about this one.  Their differing summary comments about the 2014 may leave you wishing, too.

From Arratoon, “This year the jury, headed by Princess Stephanie, was spot on with the Gold Clown awards, which went to the wildly popular Desire of Flight and the Sokolov Troupe.”

From Albrecht, judging the festival against others he has attended over 13 years:  "The lineup of acts was not only the slimmest in terms of number of acts, but also the quality."

The princess may be listening to too many insiders.