John Ringling North II to the World: Let There Be More Circus ... New Productions, New Acts & Tigers Promise a New K-M Look in ‘08 ...

Contrary to blogging rumors elsewhere that John Ringling North II is out of the biz after a year helming Kelly-Miller, the nephew of John Ringling North is actively at work crafting a whole new show for the 2008 season.

For the first time in years, Kelly-Miller will tour a cat act.

In an e-mail to Showbiz David, North writes:

“I am still in the circus business, and, yes, we had a good season. We did have a truck burn up, but no one was hurt. We returned safely to Hugo after closing in Ardmore’

North tells me, “We have 3 new production numbers and a lot of new acts.” He plans to be in Hugo come January to discuss staging details with his manager, Jim Royal.

John Moss, whose services North evidently values, returns as ringmaster and performance director.

In another message, Royal detailed for me winterquarter activities underway. The office trailer is being revamped. A big top sleeper is getting an upgrade. Next season’s seating layout incorporates a hippodrome track, “improved sight lines,” and the ring curbs are being refashioned by North’s daughter, Katherine, herself an interior designer. The planned opening production number, says Royal, "is unlike any in previous K-M editions."

Booking is going well, he notes. “We have good feelings about 2008.”

Check back on this midway for more. My at-large correspondent, Sage, is on a bus headed for Hugo for on-location, in-depth reporting

[photo above: John Ringling North II, from a photo in the 1967 Ringling-Barnum program magazine]

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This One’s for the Very Much Alive Judy Finelli

She directed the Pickle Family Circus for a few seasons in the late 80s. In 1989, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. For many heroic years since, Judy has faced her illness with evident dignity, courage and resolve. And somehow somewhere I gained a sense that she had passed on. Not so. Of the many errors I have made over the years in my books — and I’ve made my fair share — reporting about “the late Judy Finelli” is surely the worst. In fact, she has just witnessed me fall off a very high high wire...

Judy called me yesterday ("David, this is Judy calling you from the grave..."), having heard from a reviewer with an advance copy of my book Fall of the Big Top, officially due out in February, asking Judy if she is still alive. Indeed, the valiant Judy is still very much alive, and very articulately so, I can vouch for that, having spoken with her at length about this issue. I recall her many warm and outgoing invitations to me during the Pickle years to attend annual openings. She served as artistic director during a most difficult time, in the wake of the big top revolution called Cirque Du Soleil, when all American circuses to a degree were struggling to answer the Cirque challenge.

My profound regrets and apologies to you, Judy. May you live many more years!

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Live Streaming from Sage, Somwhere Out There...

Hey, is this Showbiz David?

Yeah, is that you, Sage. Where have you been?

All over the lot, man. Look, things are going wild in the rumor mill. I'm out here mid America, and have I got an earful. Did you hear about ...

Sage? Sage?

...going all the way out to...

Sage?

(phone connection lost)

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Why Can’t L.A. Produce a Hit Broadway Musical?

Los Angeles Theatre Critics Toss Bouquets at Turkeys! That’s One Reason Why. You Want Others?

The New York opening this week at the Public Theatre of Henry David Hwang’s new play Yellow Face to mixed notices --- some scathing and a negative from the New York Times --- is but another example of the great divide between the critics of Los Angeles and those of New York. Yellow Face tried out last spring in L.A. at the Mark Taper Forum to generally glowing reviews, which surprised me because I saw a very flawed work in need of major rethinking and rewriting. Although Yellow Face is not a musical, it’s journey from L.A. acclaim to N.Y. disdain is typical of what happens to new musicals that are born where stars are born and fade away ingloriously under the punishing lights of Forty Second Street.

Interesting that another work by Hwang, his shamelessly self-serving rewrite and virtual obliteration of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song also traveled from Los Angeles kudos to New York bricks, where it flopped.

My essay on the subject in general -- Tinseltown to Times Square, New Musicals Face Vexing Odds -— posted elsewhere on this blog because of its length can be reached by typing “vexing odds” in the search box to your left above, and it will appear directly following this posting.

To read my own review of Yellow Face, type “Yellow Face.”

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The Barkers Who Lure Us In ... the Stars Who Lure Us Back

Circuses resort to all manner of hype and discount, pr and free tix blitz to lure us into their tents. Never an easy task. What we see, once seduced, may make us want to return ... Were it not for a newspaper discount coupon that gave my mother the will, she might never have taken my sister and me to see King Bros Circus when it came to Santa Rosa, and I would never have seen the great Truzzi — although I must rely on the word of others, for I recall so little about his act, I was so young then and so much more taken with a teeterboard display (new to my eyes) and with a group of acrobats running down a long ramp and somersaulting over a mountain of elephants.

Less than a year later, fresh out of Luther Burbank elementary school one afternoon, I ran down to the fairgrounds where a circus was playing inside the Grace Pavilion. Outside it I stood, excited and anxious and without a ticket. A tall man in a red hat reached down and handed me a free coupon, and, thanks to those wonderful Shriners, I was seconds later inside a strange spangled paradise produced by Polack Bros. And who did I see? Those early years I saw Francis Brunn and the Wallendas, La Norma and Les Geraldos, the cycling Theron Family, Lou Jacobs and so many more like them -- Spangleland's all-stars. They spoiled me.

Coupons and freebies, “mailouts” and “laydowns,” in the words of the Savvy Insider, who elsewhere on this midway, logging a comment, reminds us of the efficacy of such workable promotions —- well, if you’re a kid on the receiving end and your mother is struggling to make ends meet, as was mine. Thank you, Mr. Crass Promoter, who thought up the brilliant idea.

Getting there and wanting to come back. In defense of his trade, our visiting promoter commented thus:

“By any measure traditional circus is a subversive art form, whether the producers know it or not. It teaches children to love live performance in a way that dragging them to the ballet does not. And if you learn to love live performance you’ll find your way to ballet on your own when your older. A mudshow is a bargain because you won’t find live professional performance in any theater for $25 with the kids getting in for free. Shows forever like to boast about the family friendly nature of circus, because by and large we are but we sell ourselves short sometimes in forgetting the artistry of the circus even beneath the most bedraggled of bigtops.”

It cost me in the gut to see Cirque Du Soleil’s latest, and it was worth it. Among the payoffs, the most gripping juggler I’ve seen since I first saw Francis Brunn over 50 years ago when a Shriner handed me a ticket. I’m so excited over the personal discovery of Anthony Gatto, about whom I knew nothing, that I’m revved up for ‘08 ... waiting to see what the other tents have up their rings: Big Apple in the spring, Little Bertha come August, Carson & Barnes if they favor California ...

Gatto made me search my muddy memories, recalling some of the jugglers who have captivated my attention and respect down through time, among them, Wally Eastwood with Carson & Barnes, the Pickle Family ensembles, foot juggler Ugo Garrido on Ringling in 1968. What style and pizazz. And boy, did Merle Evans match Garrido’s nimble rhythm with a cha cha reading of "Ramona." Terrifically on point. Another stylish charmer is Alex Chimal who graced Chimera for a number of seasons.. Not saying they are the best. Seems there are a lot of fine jugglers out and about these days. Sometimes, a mid level performer with the right attack can make you want to return.

I loved the Osmani sisters on Vargas in the mid-80s. Maybe they weren’t the greatest, but oh did they have class and a well-matched charisma... Delivery is more than half the battle. If you only have stats in labored motion, you miss the mark. Anthony Gatto of Monte Carlo Gold has it all in my eyes. I’m afraid to watch him again for fear he might shatter my mesmerizing image of center-ring perfection.

Circus, I’m ready for another season...

[photos from top: Anthony Gatto at Monte Carlo; The Osmani sisters, Circus Vargas, circa 1989; Wally Eastwood, Carson & Barnes, 1978, left; Ugo Garrido, Ringling, 1968]

12/8/07

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Australia’s Anti-Circus is Right at Home in Berkeley

Holiday Look Backs, this from 2007

Circus Review: Circus Oz at Zellerbach Hall,Berkeley, Saturday, 2 p.m., December 1. $26 to $48

I think it’s time for me and the anti-circus to part company. A no-fault divorce on principle alone. This is hardly a circus. This is a subversive and sometimes very funny stage show referencing circus acts in the act of deconstructing them, same way it takes glee in tearing down sexual norms and old-hat morality. We are not in a ring. We are in a moody underground night club for disgruntled losers somewhere on the outskirts of a world gone half-mad. Could it be that the Aussies behind this operation suffer the guilt of their own Nevil Shute having novelized the end of the world in his nuclear war tale, On The Beach? Chilly. Poignant. Out there ...

Circus Oz lacks the will of its perversity to be a full-force theatrical onslaught. This time out, they reach their comedy highpoint trashing the flying trapeze. While bumbling about in the air, they and their rig come tumbling down. Deliciously amusing. There’s a dramatic end point here worth a play, if only somebody would have the courage to write it.

Circus acts? Mostly amateurs laboring hard to resemble the “death defying daredevils, hilarious humans, astonishing acrobats,” promised on Circus Oz fliers. This is the “Laughing at Gravity Tour” in which only a few performers show real stuff: Rockie Stone impresses on a cloud swing; Showmanly Joel Salom, a three-club juggling charmer, keeps two in motion while attempting to remove his shirt and ends up without his pants. Oh, the inner Aussie longing to go au natural. Not a problem for the show’s star, a horny little very witty robotic dog who cracks, “Yeah, I know why you really came here. You want to check out my balls.”

Rowdy Innuendos and phallic symbols (a central prop being a banana, sans condom) fly high and wide. Gender bending proceeds apace at the anti-circus. I was wondering if the clowns would enact a sex change on a low wire. Or maybe two politicians getting arrested for practicing Risley in a public restroom stall. And to think, this affair was pitched as a family package. Well no, not to think — after all, we are in the San Francisco Bay Area, a land of progressive mortals who would rather commit collective suicide than be seen as intolerantly conventional.

Perhaps it’s now considered hip to subject moppets to the kind of vulgarity (pardon me, sophistication) that will sooner than later stalk them everywhere they look. Such a bleak brittle landscape, though, and from the same country that gave us my favorite contemporary pop composer, Paul Hardcastle. He is not here. Hard rock is.

A scantily clad cabaret singer played like a stripper by Christa Hughes brings things to a close by promising to give us everything we want. Up to her ankle for a taste of skin runs dogie robot, itching to get down. Hoops of fire encircle acrobats.

When is a circus not a circus? When it is mostly something other than a circus. That’s when. And Oz is that, perhaps brilliantly so. Make no mistake, I admire their daffy creativity and dark satiric bombast. I just wish they would come clean on the “circus” angle and go for a performance piece with real dramatic force. I can almost picture a post-apocalyptic nuclear wrap-up party with side show banners burning, cross-dressing elephants rampaging down on the beach, dogie robot and Muscle Lady going at it. Now, that might get them three or four stars from me..

But ... Circus Oz, since you persist in using (and I do mean using – or should I say abusing) the word “circus” so shamelessly to haul in family audiences to your big top boudoir of lonely unrequited sleaze, I’m gonna judge you as a circus. Fair is fair?

I’m out of this tent.

Overall rating: 1- 1/2 stars (out of 4 possible)

12.3.07

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Sunday Morning, Looking Back: Loosening up, Cirque du Soleil Flirts with the Power of True Circus

This first appeared on November 30, 2007. If Blogger stats don't lie, it is by far the most viewed page on this blog.

Circus Review: Kooza


San Francisco, November 19 at 4 p.m. $55.00 to $210.00 top.

To follow the phenomenal success of Cirque du Soleil is to wonder how long it can last and what changes it might be willing to make in the years ahead to stay in the black. The good news here is that Kooza, Guy Laliberte’s latest touring show, takes a few giant leaps backwards in time to a more authentic big top experience. May we say goodbye for good, Corteo? I can’t recall a previous edition of Cirque as powerful as this one is in its redemptive second half.

Getting there takes a little time and patience. The gorgeous tent itself remains a temple of heightened atmosphere and mystery. During come-in, a delightfully wacky trio of older fashioned character clowns (stress character) led by Canadian Gordon White are fun to watch. They will specialize at extended intervals throughout the program in a line of slapstick and toilet humor that can seem as much filler as worthy comedic invention. And their ring time adds to the impression of a variety show with circus acts rather than a cirque du ballet. This comes as something of a promising relief.

Cirque’s stated aim in this newest touring unit (no proper Cirque will dare leave home without one) has something to do with The Innocent, a “naive but charming clown striving to find his place in the world” and the exploration of “fear, identity, recognition and power.” I read that in the program, but from the show itself, what I remember the most were a handful of gifted performers who thrilled me — as they obviously they did everybody else in the near-full house — doing things that trump all such pretentious rhetoric.

The opening segments bear familiar Cirque markings --- misty allusions to another world being reached, ensemble choreography, the use of mechanics and the sketchy maneuvers of those who use them (rolling globes and a single trap aerialist). And you wonder, has nothing much changed in the Montreal mind set? A couple of acts ahead, it most certainly has. Enter a troupe of high wire daredevils who break through the veneer with dashing realism, working on two wires, one above the other. They are from Columbia and Spain — Flouber Sanchez (Pinpon) and the brothers Dominguez — Roberto Quiros, Angel Quiros, Vicente Quiros and Angel Villarejo. Together, they generate real excitement dancing and cavorting aloft. A net is efficiently extended below them, and that’s the commendable way to add safety. Our wire walkers proceed with balancing poles to execute a perfect three-man pyramid on two bicycles. Thus, they deliver Cirque du Soleil from its chronic deference to hard hats and practice mechanics. Can Laliberte break the habit? Evidently so. I told you there is good news here.

Really, to be honest, up until the wire guys come on just before intermission, not a lot has happened. And I found myself wondering, will that be all that there is to be?

Then came the second half, delivering a pair of absolutely sensational history-making performances, one a drop-dead thriller in the air, the other, a riveting display of juggling genius the likes of which you have probably never before seen. Go there to see it.

The thriller: Two guys from Colombia (Is Colombia becoming the world center of circus thrills?) named Jimmy Ibarra Zapata and Carlos Enrique Marin Loaiza who work a double wheel of death in the most recklessly accomplished fashion. I have never ever seen this rig exploited so dangerously and with such gut-grabbing bravado. Zapata and Loaiza are outrageously daring. Stars. Stars. Stars. May I repeat their names — Zapata and Loaiza. They had the crowd gasping like roller coaster fanatics. Remember the word spine-tingling? Here it applies.

Second highpoint worth a trip to this tent: A juggler so incredibly accomplished, powering through a repertoire of tricks and not making a single error, as to leave me wondering in joy: is he the greatest I have seen since I first beheld the great Francis Brunn many years ago in my boyhood? He probably is. Mesmerizing through and through. Monte Carlo should just send him the gold, no questions asked, no appearances necessary. Who is he? Of course, he is not announced, and in the program where every artist gets the same tiny space for a mug shot (shame on you, Cirque, for such miserly credit-giving), I learn that I have just witnessed the work of Anthony Gatto. Star. Star. Star.

These breath taking turns are what give the otherwise meandering Kooza an edge and a purpose. There are a number of other artists, to be sure, who demonstrate agility and polish and add a degree of pleasure to the mix: a group of intrepidly nimble contortionists; an acrobatic duo of persuasive agility; another pair who ride a bicycle inventively, combining romantic flirtations with nimble acrobatics; a guy from Sweden of all places named Michael Halvarson who mines comedy magic with a sly pick-pocketing turn using a shill from the crowd. All nice enough stuff.

Overall, however, curiously Kooza suffers from the uneasy convergence of dispirit forces competing for attention — the star circus acts who will not be reduced to stick figures in a Cirque mist; the bickering clowns who consume too much ring time, some of it courtesy of audience volunteers (who, for all I know, could be shills); the so-called “story,” and Cirque’s lingering compulsion to produce its signature atmosphere. Director-writer David Shiner has not succeed in merging these elements into an embracing aesthetic unity. In this department, Kooza is no match for the memorable Varakei, so the audience must settle for a pleasant ersatz Vegas variety format.

Shiner's writerly vision lacks rhythm, and the production lacks pacing and sharper transitions. Given Cirque’s unlimited resources, prop changes that take time should not. The narrative premise is realized in fits and starts, although the plight of The Innocent is charmingly essayed by Stephan Landry who rings a little pathos in the end when he is left alone with only his kite after the circus gypsies have disappeared into a dark mist of closure.

Music follows action faithfully, which means that we get many different sounds and styles from ethnic to jazz, yet most of it relevant and engaging and a welcome change from the operatic scores of the past.

My biggest complaint is as much a wish: There could and should have been more content here. A couple of the acts listed in the program — a duo single trap turn and the outstanding Chinese chair balancer, Zhang Congli — did not appear that day; perhaps they would have done the trick. Cirque’s billionaire big top boss has all the money he needs, and still he uses sponsors. And now he has eliminated the free water stations on the lot. The impression he conveys is of a filthy rich producer with a serious greed problem. Not a pretty impression.

At least Mr. Laliberte has shown a stomach for the authentic artistry that thrills a house time and time again. And he may have no other choice in order to stay in business but to give the public the circus it expects — no matter the format, no matter the dry ice formula.

Overall Grade: ***

11/30/07

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