Word: circusing
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...elephant is a skilled performer as well, and this is the real attraction. Some claim that a circus is incomplete without clowns and elephants. I only partially agree. I've never liked clowns. I'm repelled by their enforced hilarity and mask of painted smiles. I don't trust a person who is always happy. I wonder what lurks under the facade. An elephant, on the other hand, not only never forgets; it never smiles...
Last Thursday I went to The Big Apple Circus, a one-ring show with the big-top pitched at Marine Industrial Park, twenty minutes by foot from the State T-stop. The Big Apple is a two-elephant circus. That is how a circus used to be advertised, by the elephant-count. In the late nineteenth century, circus owners competed for the elephant crown. In 1881, Barnum had four elephants, Forepaugh had five, and the Sells Brothers called their gig the "Great European Seven Elephant Railroad Show." No match for Pompey, who is 61 B.C. advertised a celebration...
Ringling Brothers was the last circus I had seen, twelve years earlier. Their three-ring extravaganza in a vaulted coliseum whose ceiling receded into darkness hyperstimulated the senses of a ten-year-old. Brightly clad acrobats, new smells, band music and peanuts demanded simultaneous attention. To get back to my seat, I parted the madding crowd by holding my cotton candy out in front and marching straight ahead...
...much smaller: A clown at ground level can throw an inflated beach ball to the top row, and the ring is just three and one-half elephant lengths across. The audience remains seated except during intermission. The air is well circulated, and there is a noticeable lack of circus smell. You are close enough to the action so that in slow moments you consider what percentage of the ticket price goes for liability insurance. With the lights lowered, you share with the performers a living-room intimacy...
Barnum called himself "Prince of Humbugs," but today the circus has become respectable. The troupers study theater, ballet, and circus arts. Many have college degrees. I half expect to find in the program a list of corporate contributions and NEA matching funds, and, in fact, I do. The Big Apple is a not-for-profit organization; a donation of $2500 gains admission to the Ringmaster's Circle. And although The Big Apple is officially non-profit, the concession stand rakes it in. A cotton candy costs four dollars, an 11-oz bottle of water costs $2.50 (more than a soda...