Laying down The Whip, at the fairgrounds in Santa Rosa.
In my compulsively creative boyhood, the discovery at the county fairgrounds of how Foley & Burk carnival wagons were spotted and unloaded to form midway attractions utterly fascinated me. Rides went up in portable sections. Wood frames for games were raised, joined together by open hinges, and covered in canvas.
My pet wagon was a quaint little thing when I first laid eyes on it, parked in front of the fairgrounds entrance. What was it for? A few comical images and a small scrim I could barely see through posed a mystery. When the wagon was spotted on the midway, its sides raised to form a two story structure, Thimble Theater appeared at the top. I was taken. Had. Seduced. With the dark walk-through on the top floor, it would become my all time favorite carnival amusement.
Actually, Fun on the Farm, its manufactured name at birth, was trans-fashioned by Foley & Burk to feature comics characters out of the 1930s. Working parts powered animated images of them on the front facades, and within, rotating floor sections that produced the most wonderful grinding sounds.
Infected with wagon-based zeal, I started out with my very portable red Radio Flyer wagon, a Christmas gift. Once, I turned it into a covered wagon, another time, a cool aid concession . And I built the portable frame for a fun house in the front yard, under scorching July heat. Covered it with old rugs my mother had thrown out. Shortly thereafter, the fire department paid us a courtesy visit. My most formidable creation was condemned before it could even open!
I can't remember what I was trying to bring off here.
Me with Tippy, and Patches our cat, sister Kathy to the left, brother Dick to the right..
Blame this portable blather on an unexpected article, Hollywood on Wheels, by Douglas McPherson in London, writing for The Stage. The subject is Fit-ups, as they were called in the UK, a tradition dating back to at least 1839. In a land of playwright giants (Becket, Synge, Shaw, Wilde, O’Casey) ironically, there were pitifully few stages upon which to play Waiting for Godot in a pup tent? This lead to Fit–up touring troupes that brought their own flats and drops, and proscenium arches, fitted them in open spaces, on village and school hall stages, to keep the show going. Young actors and writers, toiling in Fit-ups (Harold Pinter, one), were better prepared, I am supposing, to be less critical of “professional theater” working conditions.
My puppet shows went on tour, too. At Luther Burbank Elementary, I was asked to present a show from from classroom to classroom up and down the halls. This called for the fitting-up genius of my.Uncle Teddy, who designed and built for me a portable stage. With my record-player sound man, Ross Begley, we loaded it out on my Radio Flyer, and rolled it to school one morning. We were a big hit!
In the smallest of wee Irish towns, you could watch a different Shakespeare play almost every night, and on Sundays, be tickled by comedies, like The Importance of Being Ernest. On portable screens, flickering images of Rudolph Valentino and Charlie Chaplin charmed the simple masses. These road shows, about 60 in number at their peak, thrived into thee 1960s. And then came television.
In recent times, reports McPherson, Fit Ups are making something of a charming little come back. He quotes Geoff Gould who “was raised on tales of the fit ups by his mother and father,” throwing up his own company, Blood in the Alley (handball games), sixteen years ago. Still on the road, they are spreading their brand of mayhem in halls, pubs, tents and in the open.
My model building, photo above, honors some of my favorite rides.
Today’s portable amusements may be better engineered and easier to set up. I’ll take yesterday’s very visible moving parts. Their sweaty rise over a dry field of grass and weed. The grinding rumble of the shifting floors in the Thimble Theater. Oh, what a fabulous soundtrack. What a fun house – human hands all the way!
And that’s a fitting wrap
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2 comments:
The best part about the County and State fairs was the grind shows, though I liked the small shows at the smaller fairs. The busty Zamora, covered in jungle snakes who turned out to be a young lady with downs syndrome with an iguana and some little harmless snakes in the pit. 'The Horrors of Drug Abuse' show was an extremely obese woman who lived behind a plate glass window, where you could look right into her living quarters. I liked the wild voodoo woman from the swamps of Louisiana who was a carny girl sitting in a coffin with the skeleton of a baby (or monkey - I don't remember). There was no one else in the tent, so I spoke to her for a while. She was dead serious about her show and spoke enthusiastically about new props she was making. She took her part in show business very seriously.
The few town people who bought tickets for grind shows didn't seem to mind that much that they'd been hoodwinked. Just laughed it off.
I think I saw, what must have been one of the last girl shows - in Quebec. Quite an impressive front with a long bally stage, running lights and several girls parading up and down in tacky Vegas type feathers. Behind the big facade was a small tent with a little stage. A girl would come off the bally stage, put a 45 record on a record player, that was on a chair. She'd do her "act", then go back to the bally and the next girl would take a turn.
I guess (I know) I like tacky, tawdry, less than perfect stuff. Equipment that has seen 50 coats of paint. Show people barely eking out a living with the shabbiest of set-ups. The flash and perfection of a modern circus has it's place, but I sure miss those old carny shows.
I can almost smell the ozone and rubber smell of the bumper cars, the godawful sound systems that all the rides and shows had - competing with one another with the spiels on a loop. None of that relates to the traveling cinemas and stage plays, but it is all stuff that has passed into history - never to return.
Thanks for sharing!
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