Big Top Tremors: On Carson & Barnes, A Second Spring ... On Ringling, Will Ice Suffice? ... On Bella, a Ringmaster is Born ... On Vargas, A Dog Might Help ... On Big Apple, a Llittler Apple Would Do ... And More on the Inside!

From not so long ago ...

Back following the arrows, Carson & Barnes is NOT down and gone.  Not by a dozen scrappy seasons, I’d guess.  As C&B goes, I have come to feel, so too goes the circus. The Byrds have a way of making it happen, assuming they are not running a Ponzi peanut scheme on the side.  They took an ominous “mid-summer break” and some wondered in dead-season dread, are they doomed?   Not so.  And that cheers my battered big top heart. 

So, too, is Circus Vargas — still on the road, that is.  And headed my way.  A wining Vargas TV ad looks awesome.  Makes me want to go again, and hope again, and rue the dismal setting in which they, the antiseptic circus without even a dog or a cat, so fittingly pitch their top -- on another one of those dying American malls (no tears here, I’m old-school Main Street)  in a place called Hayward, CA.  So depressing, the tent over asphalt, the tent up against a cold thundering freeway, the tent lost in a concrete canyon, one by one, big name tenants deserting.  Macy’s gone.

How good or not so good is Ringling in its new space age colors?  Strange they could not pull a major review in Los Angeles, where they uncorked Out Of This World. New York Times sent Brooks Barnes out to cover the prior try-out date in Fresno, and his report offered two views of the space voyage.

THE AUDIENCE: “Judging from the zealous applause ... Feld’s vision has its fans.”

HIS OWN OBSERVATIONS:  “Modernization efforts are never easy, especially when the product being updated relies on nostalgia for a great deal of its appeal. Ringling’s customers tend to be parents wanting to pass along a rite from their own childhoods — the smell of the sawdust, the drippy snow cone, the booming voice of the ringmaster. Too much change too fast could upend a form of live entertainment that remains an enormous draw, particularly among working-class families.”

The Little Apple Circus, anyone?  Let’s put this theoretically out-of-business show on the Watch List.  All they need do is run the bureaucratic bloat off the lot, let go of Lincoln Center — You are NOT a Broadway show, Big Apple  -- and put on a dandy enough circus in city parks.  Me thinks, if there is to be a future, it is in Paul’s hands.  Me thinks, he  awaits a Wall Street angel-to-the-rescue.

On a Bella Bounce: Once Oakland based, the student-family Circus Bella, with a dozen or so free summer shows in Bay Area Parks, again juggles up a modest little energizer,  managing to keep most of the clubs in motion. In its favor, Bella has retained its engagingly inventive clown, Calvin Kai Ku and its tip top band leader, Rob Reich. Best of all, Bella’s best new discovery is a ringmaster named David Hunt,  above, the fellow who co-founded the show and did a slack rope act --  until now.  Let’s hype Hunt: A natural born charmer, smartly short of overkill, Hunt combines the zest of a carny baker with the cool of a stand up comedian warming up a studio audience for a TV show taping. Circus owners,  are you reading this?  The name, to repeat, is David Hunt ... As for the music man, I still recall Reich’s joyful score two years back (the best Bella show, one could feel promise then), which capered and giggled, tooted and rooted on  a breezy melodic bounce.  This year’s music is more grunge than than gusto, more sax than piccolo.  I prefer the latter.

Shunning its roots, Circus Bella now calls San Francisco its home, and what a groveling and sad sell out to the epicenter of narcissism and greed. A city where circus skills are pitched to the rich with an itch to dabble. A city of pretenders.  Welcome to the club, Bella.

END RINGERS: Rhode Island banning bull hooks.  Might the issue end up in the supreme court?  Not without Feld contesting it; perhaps they will put their retired bulls back to work in some other world. The Elephant exit is not about to be overturned, kids ... John Ringling's old private car, The Jomar is now a restaurant.  Why did one of the museums not grab it up?  ...  The Windjammers recently gave three concerts in Baraboo, two on the square, and one at Circus World.  Circus Historical Society President Don Covington, and himself a piccolo player, likened the experience to “coming back to Mecca.”

Anybody watching the rah-rah Olympics? I got so frustrated with the NBC schedule, which did not match what I actually looked forward to seeing, because of that schedule, that as long as they try making me watch everything, I won’t watch anything.   Besides, I am still smarting over the chronic absence  of roller sports at the games. 

Go, Carson & Barnes!  

 Big Apple Circus in the beginning

First posted on August 12, 2016