How to View a Circus When It’s Hardly a Circus? Poking About for What's Left in the Ruins of Ringling .... Take, for Example, Do Portugal Circus

        Nameless juggler and big box illusionist tops a weak bill 

     Going to a circus these days can be like rolling the dice over a sinking ship.

    During her supreme court nomination process, Katanji Brown Jackson was asked to define “woman,” She could not.  Or would not, more likely.  Yes, believe it.   More than ever, some of the most basic yet critical words are being  ignored or twisted into meaningless  mush: Objectivity, monogamy, gender, among the most fractious.    

       And so to the word Circus:  There is a definition upon which most of us, I believe, can agree: A variety show (preferably) in a ring featuring acrobats, clowns and animals.  These tepid days, I am keeping those three staples in mind whenever I step under canvas to take in another promise of “circus.”      

     At another show out of Mexico throwing up allusions to a more exotic land, called Do Portugal Circus, it offered to a gratefully responsive crowd heavily stacked with kids: no animals, few action-acrobatic acts, too much pointless dancing by four girls who start the show (Hello! The circus, anyone?), and a clown who clung to the ring as if he could have clung-clowned all night.  His self-satisfaction was not shared by everyone. 

      Overall, the number of motorbikes in the big “cage of death” fairly well sums up Portugal’s meager spread of talent: two.  Nothing bad, all very okay basic. 

      On balance,  however, the whole affair left the three adults and a bright sixteen year old in my party more amused in recalling how big a let down the whole thing was. A very merry ride back home was had by all.  For myself, I’d give five stars  to a ring redeemer in the terrific juggling and, later, big box illusions, of a showmanly young man whose name does not appear on Portagul's  bare-bones website.  My kin liked the elaborate multiple bow-and-arrow shoot out, too complicated to try describing.

                Classy Top, Comfy Chairs

     The tent was the most impressive thing of all, not small, with solid seating.  Add to that, a good half house full.  Lights flashed.  . The emphatic sound system pumped out woozy modern-sounding pop, loud enough to keep everybody awake. An inconspicuous ring-mistress made a few token appearances, mostly to urge customers to tweet up the show to friends.  Consumer reviews for Do Portagul, assuming they are to be believed, are boffo.  Perhaps Circus Talk can find some worthy character arcs in these generally slow turns. 

     And what might all of this really matter to the adults in the tent the next morning?  It matters if they are going away thinking, as my great nephew Noah did, that it was “really for children.”  Was the Greatest Show on Earth really just for children?

     Our twilight American midway grows smaller, the crowds younger.  And the shows hobble on in the shreds of a long-gone brilliance.  Astley’s great gift is virtually extinct over here.

END RINGERS: Do Portugal,which we caught in Harrisonburg, VA, appears to have several units. Who knows, they might sometimes put out a very good performance.  Website is devoid of photos.  In Culpeper VA,  there awaiting my train back to the state or inanity, we discovered a Zoppe flyer in a store window.  This family of charmers had been there only days earlier! Zoppe’s few dates are spread far apart across the country.  They will be out my way, in Petaluma, come August.  And once again, I will embark upon a midway with incurable dreams.