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 

Circus and The New York Times: Don’t Always Expect the Most Knowing Reviews

Perhaps The New York Times go-to-the-circus critic, cultural reporter Alexis Soloski,  took far too seriously the goings on at the current show, which costumes and links circus acts to Gotham’s  “Hometown Playground” — tourists sites, iconic signage, fashions, et all. For she quibbles with the imagery as being out of date – such as poodles in Ziegfeld costumes.  They strike me as  charming.

“The acts are given vague tie-ins to the five boroughs. An acrobat performs an upside-down routine dressed as a construction worker.  Upside down they don’t cat call ... The poodles, all shelter rescues, arrive in a checkered cab.”

I assume they should have been  Lyfted in.   So does this mean it is okay to use only dogs from  rescue shelters in circuses?  How  weaselly hypocritical a justification, woke! woke!

Any critic who goes to a circus these days expecting high-grade integration of theme or story  is best advised to park their brains at the door, and let their do hearts do the watching.   

Strangest of all, Soloski takes issue with slack wire performer Mihret Mekonnen from Ethiopia, seen above, writing, “However challenging, it is no substitute for a high one – or very slightly out of date.’

That is the stupidest thing I have ever read in a circus review.  

“Big Apple Circus’s exercise in nostalgia feels paler than the real city just beyond the tent.”  

Still, our vacillating reviewer wraps on a feel good note: “Sometimes messy, sometime thrilling ... the show is a fine diversion for a fall afternoon.”

Which pales in comparison to the story's headline: "An underwhelming exercise in nostalgia."

Other reviews? I find only one,  in DC Theater --- a rave.  Frankly, it looks like a lot of fun to me, mixed imagery included.

Don’t be surprised if the Gray Lady spins out another annual accolade:  “A New York Times Lazy Critic’s Pick!”

Thank You, America, For Coming to Your Senses

What makes me the happiest? To know that most Americans through so many classes and cultures all over the country share my feelings. It makes me feel better about the country, and better about its future.  Even here in the State of  Insanity (CA), there is hope.

SINGING ON SATURDAY: New Brit Big Top Musical Puts Songs on the Marquee ... Might This Start A New Trend? ...

 

And how would you like your circus served today, sir?  Wrapped in ballet ... or steeped in theater?   You said  Cirque free?  A La Cart maybe?  And for music, will it be Karl King or Cole Porter? 

Of the various production elements that go into making a circus performance, by far the most powerful is music.  And the closer it comes to connecting with an audience, the greater its impact on the show. 

We need no better way to illustrate this than to take a look at the 1932 program magazine for  Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. The holder of this particular copy appears to have written down the titles of favorite tunes played during many of the displays: That 1932 show played at least two songs hot off piano keys that year – “Just Anther Shanty in Old Shanty Town” for a display of aerialists, and  "Lord You Made the Night Too Long” for Wallenda pyramids scaling the high wire.   

Elephants cavorted to  “The Washboard Blues,”from 1925, and “Can’t We Talk It Over?” Family horse riding acts rode to “Keep on Smiling, “ and the clowns held down the track to “Yankee Doodle.”Alfredo Codona's trapeze artistry was serenaded by an 1882, ditty, “The Skaters Waltz."

Can there be any disagreement that favorite  tunes will enhance our reaction to the acts before us?  For my own ears,  unforgettable are the zippytific Stephenson’s Dogs  scampering merrily to  “That’s Entertainment;” Gracious Charlie Bauman collaborating with his tiger friends to the music of "The Shadow of Your Smile;” Single trap daredevil supreme Gerald Soules diving dangerously close to the brink of extinction  as Cole Porter's’ “So In Love”charges the air.

In recent times, with live music missing from most shows, the owners have resorted to either playing  CDs that come with the acts, or producing original scores —the mixed results can veer between appealing and appalling.  

Won’t you play a simple melody?  Yes, please!  John Ringling North in 1956 featured the music of the famed Broadway composer of the musical Guys and Dolls, and billed this novelty  The Greatest Show on Earth, with songs by Frank Loesser.

 Which brings me  to a most interesting development over in  London town, where a new kind  of circus program  under a small tent is causing a promising buzz. Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular  is making its primary pitch on the songs it sings from the Hugh Jackman film, The Greatest Showman.  Notwithstanding JRN's move above, this may mark a first in circus ballyhoo. 

I don’t know if they can fill out the entire show, but this I know:  I am rooting big time for the success of this venture.  Why?  Because, I can only hope that  it will help put the focus back  on popular songs and pull it away from other trendy embellishments pushed by theater and ballet elitists, which are dragging down and  diluting the primal power of circus.   

 

In fact, Come Alive! also comes loaded with a muddle of materials vaguely alluding to story-telling elements. From the London website Ham and High, which issued a great notice, also issued was a qualm that often dogs Cirque du Soliel reviews:  "Overall this showman mash up is great fun for all the family, just don't ask what it's about." lol.

Nonetheless,  score-wise, have we here the seeds of a new trend in the making?  Are there other films that might serve the same purpose?  Surely one would be  The Sound of Music movie which has been screened to audiences who sing along to its songs.

Movie fans having lunch before a Sound of Music movie sing-a-long at the Hollywood Bowl in 2008.

 So, how might its songs work for a circus performance?  Here are my suggested match-ups:

Title song: I can see a serene ensemble opening, performers moving in slow motion.

My Favorite things:  Teeterboard

Do Re Mi:  Dogs!

Lonely Goatherd:  Dressage

How Can Love Survive? (from the original cast album) Horse riders

No Way To Stop It: Jugglers

Climb Every Mountain:  High wire

Edelweiss  Trapeze flyers

Proposed matches for shows and music 

Circus Vargas / Hollywood movie musicals

Cirque du Soleil / Andrew Lloyd Webber

Big Apple Circus / Broadway show tunes, Cohan to Sondheim

Zippos Circus / The Beatles

UniverSoul Circus / Motowown  

Zoppe  Family / Festive Italian score and music from  Fellini's The Clowns.

Come Alive! may risk getting lost in an ill-defined structure, as seems to have been the plight of Water for Elephants on Broadway.   Would it be too much to ask  for simply some good songs to hear while a winning lineup rolls by?

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.

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS BITES THE DUST ... BROADWAY BIG TOP GOES DOWN DECEMBER 8 ...

VANISHING WATER FOR ELEPHANTS ... Bucket's Now Half Empty ...

When last I updated, they were comfortably back in the 70% range, and so I though maybe they are finding a hook to keep going.

Latest figure: 56.9%.

From Broadway World, two days ago: "What an embarrassing number even in a week where many shows took a big hit. I expect a closing notice for Water For Elephants sometime soon too

 

Book Quiz Contest Results!

A huge crowd here last Friday, but not a one of them could produce the correct answer to the question: Who was the first and still only performer to land a Gold Clown for the type of act they performed at Monte Carlo? The next day came the answer:

JUGGLER ANTHONY GATTO

The winner:

BONNIE O'CONNOR

Congrats, Bonnie! I will e-mail you to facilitate my sending you your copy.

Two Phone Calls, One About Scott O'Donnell Leaving Circus World, the Other About Ringling Crowd Sizes in L.A.

Sometimes today when we are drowning in AI, bots, and even the "Operator" no longer being there,it is possible to get through.  I just start dialing numbers, hoping that one will still work, better yet, might deliver me to a living human being from the age of He and She.

FIRST CALL: Why did  CEO Scott O'Donnell, as the official story goes, which he confirmed when I reached him by phone, "resign" from circus world?  Scott would only say that he and his overlords (aka: Wisconsin Historical Society) did not share the same vision for the future.

So, dialing for balance by reaching out to WHS and leaving  messages with, among others, Colleen in Media Relations, she did return my call!  I asked her if she could explain how they had come to loggerheads. She promised to consult with others and get back to me.  This she did, but with not a single word answering my specific query.  She sent me the same press release that I already had, which  I quoted from in the story I earlier  posted.  An expert in the ways of the business world might be able to decode this, but I am not going there. 

SECOND CALL:  To Crypto Center (previously Staples) in L.A, about Ringling's recent three day stop there.  To the guy, Lewis, who answered the phone, I said that I was hoping to get an estimation from them of the average number of customers in the seats per performance.  He did not waste an empty second in evasion or passing the buck, but answered: "Between six and eight thousand." The arena seats 20.000. 

Would that have been a disappointment to Crypto, I asked my source.  "No," he replied. 

You can look at the figure in two ways:  What a flop!  Not even half houses!

Or, you can look at the figure in context.  Is there another circus out there anywhere in the world that draws that number of bodies in the seats?

EYES ON THE SCENE: And how did Ringling show?  I have a deep state source who was on the scene and noted that the ends of the arena were blocked out.  Pyrotechnics "were greatly reduced" and the large overhead screens were not in use.The show, he reported, was a "scaled" down version of what he had seen at an earlier date months ago, which amounted to him as a "thinning of the herd." (I like that) For example, an Ethiopian father and son foot juggling was not on the bill.  Some of those in his party, he noted,  were critical of the show, but he stood by the excellent review he had given the show when he saw it earlier in the season.

End of on-the-ground reporting the older fashioned way.

Step Right Up! Snappy Snippets in Sawdust and Spangles! -- And It's All Free on the Inside!

The circus plays a big role in my new book Keep That Day Job!  Here are some excerpts:              

 The Dark Side of a Spangle

Wallace Bros hired me to usher.  A few weeks later, they recruited me to replace a fired clown.  Now I was “with it and for it,” and now being one of them myself, soon — all too soon —   reality’s wry sense of humor struck, when  I was introduced to a real life sledgehammer.  Sure, such a pleasure to meet you! 

Dining, Haute-off-the-lot at Wallace Bros. Circus

 $25.00 a week ... Not bad given the sweet free extras that come  with the glories of performing — your flat bunk in the truck you share with the band, and the three full-course adventures served you each day in the “gut foundry” as some called it — while others preferred  “ptomaine joint,” for cookhouse. One of our musicians regaled us over his having ordered  chicken fracases for dinner and being served “fried flower” 

      Pitching Elephants to ABC from a Payphone

I am off skates, on a pay phone at the Greyhound bus depot in Chicago, having just arrived with a list of media contacts in hand.  Time is of the essence, only three days before the circus of Sid Kellner, now titled George Matthew’s Great London, is to open in the suburb of Oak Terrace.   I shove a lot of change into the phone, and start frantically dialing up local TV and radio stations, hoping to land free coverage

Typing through Tears

Up to my clerk's  desk at a chemical company in Century City, steps the office manger, handing me a just published rave review in Variety of my musical, Those Ringlings. After reading it, I continue pecking dutifully away  as a flood of tears come rolling down my face.  No town like this town.

The Ringlings, as Cast in Hollywood

Jeffrey Rockwell, who played Al Ringling  was the son of Robert, who had played Mr. Boynton on the TV version of Our Miss Brooks.   Hal Landon, Sr., who played August Ringling, was in real life the father of Hal Landon, Jr. The closest  geographical link to Ringling history was Wisconsin native Joseph Lustig, who took on the role of Alf T.    

Wishing I Could Be with Sid

At my first Kaiser Steel Christmas dinner on Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, while walking back to a private dining room the firm had secured,  I spotted a former boss,  Sid Kellner, sitting on a bar stool chatting with a woman of looks sitting next to him. How I wished I could be sitting with Sid instead. But Sid was from another time.  And he could have been so much more, as I would profile in my book Behind the Big Top.

Buy your  big show tickets now at the Amazon Annex!