S.F. Zoo Tiger Tragedy Haunts a Year Later --- Good or Bad for the Big Top?

Ironically, the do-gooders, who may argue for absolute minimum restraints in order to foster the image of relative freedom for wild animals, may bring about the unintended consequences that occured last December at the San Francisco Zoo. On Christmas day, a trio of boys were in some way making gestures to a 250-pound Siberian tiger, Tatiana, and were the recipient of her anger when she managed to scale a fence lower than national zoo standards and have at them. One died. Two survived with injuries.

In Today’s San Francisco Examiner, by sheer coincidence there it was on the front page gazing up at me from an empty bus seat on a ride back to Showbiz David Central: TIGER SCARS REMAIN.

Despite post-tiger attack shakeups at the SF Zoo (the head honcho left) and upgrades in fencing and safety apparatus, declining ticket sales have helped produce a $2 million budget shortfall. A hiring freeze is on, and vacant positions remain vacant.

Other zoos across the country have made upgrades, too, as they are hounded to remove elephants and re frame exhibits. The world-class San Diego Zoo, just to be on the “safe side,” increased the height of its fencing one foot above the standard.

Still, out there on dismally foggy Ocean Avenue where as a kid I once gawked at the wild animals in their pens, only a few weeks ago a kid climbed over a Rhinoceros fence, endeavoring either to stroke the creature or have his photo taken with it. He was cited for disturbing the animals. The zoo has no plans to further distance the rhino from its curious fans. “If somebody wants to get over the fence, they will, “ said zoo official Bob Jenkins.

Worse to come, maybe, will be courtroom revelations when the parents of Carlos Souza Jr., whom Tatiani mauled to death, have their day in court. Their lawsuit is expected to be filed by the end of December. The two brothers who survived the rampage filed a lawsuit in federal court last month seeking damages. Claims their attorney, “they are permanently scarred by this attack.”

Another lawsuit by a zoo employee, attacked by the same tiger while she was feeding it, remains in mediation. This should quell those bleeding hearts who claimed Tatiani went after the boys only because they were taunting her. Funny, does the act of feeding a tiger also constitute a taunt?

Circuses may benefit from all this. They display the wondrous interaction between humans and animals, and they bring the animals up close, and they do it safely.

Or, of course, they could only incur more heat from the do-gooders equating them with everything that has gone tragically wrong in captivity.

Perhaps the time is again near when we will have to come to grips with a reality: wild animals are wild. We share the same planet with them, and the closer we can get -- humanely, safely -- in our interactions, the better.

[photo: Paul Dhaliwal, right, and his brother Kulbir, far left, who survived Tatian's attack last Christmas at the S.F. Zoo. AP File Photo]

Read more »

Fri. Nite L’Amyxed: Here's Cheers to No-Tears Spears Over PETA Jeers! ... No T-Shirts for Herriott ... Gorilla Mom Turns on Newborn at S.F. Zoo ...

You’ve heard I suppose of Britney Spears, in and out of jail, pop star, now in and out of the Big Cage for a circus video drawing PETA sneers ... Complains No-Circus-Animals Cemtral, “How quickly America’s sweetheart fell from grace. And it wasn’t pretty. Now, at the bottom of the barrel, she’s sporting elephants dressed in circus attire for her new video titled – what else – Circus.” ... Yes, what else, PETA’s Christine Dore. And while you are lecturing, might you aim your pious jeers at Mother Monifa, gorilla who rejected her very own upon its birhtly arrival at the San Francisco Zoo (that would be “zoo” rather than the city). Weirdly sad tale. I wonder if this is an animal kingdom thing, or maybe just a monster Mom under the spell of Bagdad-by-the-Bay narcissism. Zoo Interventionists put her under sedatives, placed her newborn onto her chest, woke her back up hoping she’d bond with and embrace her own. No luck. She’s “ready to move on without her infant.” Now, there’s a tale fit for an answer from the experts (Mr. Cage Man — are you there?). Here in captivity, I’m waiting.

Hey You and your outrageously HIGH PRICED concessions, and you all know who you are — Give us a bloody break, circus world! Even Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones, high on Ringling’s audience pleaser Over the Top, not high on steep popcorn and lemonade tariffs. At the food counters, snarls he, “evil, up-selling tricks abound.” He mentions cotton candy suited up under "cardboard hats," fluffed up to a shocking $12 charge. Yes, I said TWELVE DOLLARS. And it’s not just the Felds, although nobody works concession rips off better than they ... I hereby propose Dollar Days, like how about once a week, when we the people can either, 1. Obtain a human sized bag of something for a buck or 2. bring our own pre-popped supply. Somebody out on the lot with an air popper could rake in a fortune.

...A Binder of Blank Pages: About all of my Paul Binder hyperventilating (over his imminent departure from power), a few souls offer some insight. Most intriguing was this from Johnny Ekk, “Like the great Wizard of Oz, if that curtain was pulled back you might not like what you find. If you're going to judge him on his own merits the answer may vary greatly if your response comes from a circus fan, circus employee or industry insider. I’d bet you’d be very surprised at what you’d hear, good and bad.” Okay, circus industry insiders, I'm all ears ... Curtain pull, please!

Let's bring back a little glamour, okay? And here comes pro John Herriott, offering his own page on the issue of blue jeans versus spangles. Barbara Byrd gets a Herriott thumbs up (I agree) for her wardrobe upgrades. They dazzled this season. Country and Western stars are keeping alive glitz and glitter, notes Herriott, tossing kudos to Dolly Parton, et all who “still maintain the rich showbiz traditions.” So, guess I’ll have to veer over to twang ... “We are seeing some circus acts in T shirts and it’s awful. It’s like liberty horses without nice harness and plumes because the bottom line is that they [the circus owners] are too cheap.” Most refreshing is Herriott’s concurrence with my own oft-stated misgivings about pre- and after-show audience-artist interactions: “I always felt as a performer and director that that meeting and greeting crap was demeaning and did not show off the performers as someone special” Yes, yes, and yes! Now there’s an honest page for the book from a circus industry insider ...

And that’s a light Friday wrap. Monifa, get back to the Zoo and act like a real mother before PETA adds your name to its circus criminals website.

Read more »

L.A. Lands Dudamel --- "Dudamania" Packs the Disney ..."Watch His Left Hand," Says the Lady with Opera Glasses ... And Away We Go! ...

Crazy town crammed with talent. Full of brilliant moments. Entertainment capitol. They know how. Here's the Disney Concert Hall, oh -- just maybe the most exalting piece of architecture in the United States. Taking over next year is 26-year-old Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel, already a global legend. He guest conducted last week. Houses sold out. I kept calling and nabbed a seat back of orchestra. They're calling the ticket rush "Dudamania," said lady next to me with opera glasses at the ready "to inspect him." Told me to watch Gustavo's left hand. I did, and it moves like a magic wand. Watch it work, World. For all the sparks charismatic Gustavo causes to fly, what a remarkably humble persona he cuts. Enters the music, becoming one with the musicians as I think Bernstein was known to do. Dudamel's embracement of Strauss's Alpine Symphony was eletriyfying (in truth, bringing tears to my eyes). Even the slower passsges, too, which he turned into mesmerizing whispers. At ovations, musicians turned around to applaud we in the seats. Unprecedented, lady with opera glasses told me. Orchestra seemed to be saying, yes audience, we ARE lucky. And so was I with camera. I could go on snapping Frank Ghery's masterpiece all day long (still don't have a digigal, but finally joined the cellphony crowd). In two snaps was all I needed. Snap on ...


The few moments each day when they are not in their cars, Angelinos long for higher things, such as humanizing Grand Avenue with a parkway. Here's the latest talked-about building. Trust me, minus that freeway, it impresses on the other side. Los Angeles is a region born of many rapes, from land stolen from the Gabrielino natives to water pumped away from Owens Valley farmers. Greatest rape of all, town did to itself: those ugly ugly ugly freeways. I hate hate hate them! ... And now, rape of the L.A. Times by a Chicago real estate mogul, it's latest owner. The demise of this once great newspaper, crumbling into populist-compromised drivel, could break your heart ...


Another new building, the Catholic Cathedral near the Disney. The airy hall inside is wonderfully liberated from austere old-world ambiance.


A photo I've long wanted to take: My great uncle, Hollywood scenario writer Eugene B. Lewis, lived in this Silver Lake house on North Benton at the time of his early death in 1924. He had moved west from New York Biograph in 1916 and was hired by Universal to head up 27 writers as scenario editor; Lewis later scripted silents for John Ford and other big players, including some who ended up in prison or (like Thomas Ince) murdered.


I like walking down this part of Sunset Boulevard along the Silver Lake-Echo Park stretch. Strewn with broken down yesterdays, a thousand lost nights ...

At the central library.

On Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz. Cozy bohemian neighborhood. A thousand would-be screenwriters hang out with laptops in funky cafes. Most if not all remain would-bes. It's fun anyway.

Mako, that's the name of the place -- finally; for years it had no name. Friendly hole in the wall next to the movie house on Vermont. Japanese. Great simple meals -- tempura, Teriyaki shish kabob, Vegies in fried rice, rich and sizzling, filling and priced to keep you gratefully coming back.

A burger-borrito car wash add-on, at Hollywood and Vermont.



The Vista lives on. When I lived in L.A., the perfect old movie house to watch Astaire-Rogers flicks. Now, it's upgrade city inside: Every other row has been removed to give you leg room fit for Astaire and Rogers.

Saw this very engaging -- if sanitized -- new film that tracks Harvey Milk's political career.

On my way to see Wicked, at last. Had the time Friday evening, and they had the tickets -- far from a sellout at the Pantages. (Be sure, just once, to get the cheapest seat up in the Gods -- the ceiling chandeliers and fixtures are out of this world) As for Wicked, I loved most of its first act; what followed intermission went all over the place and took hours to get there. Will somebody please take a pair of scissors to this wickedly undisciplined mess? Wicked witch, turn on your own!

Once a lovely park, they turned Pershing Square into a concrete insult, and they will live to regret it until it gets bombed out of existence.



Union Station, my favorite place, and so hard to photograph.

I'm still a sucker for the tinsel in tinsel town. Show me any palm tree in cement --now if it's L.A. cement, oh, what a glamorous tree!

[all photos by Showbiz David]

12/7/08

Read more »

The Circus Book Paul Binder Will Never Write, and Why ...

Hard to imagine any circus producer down through the ages as well educated or intellectually inclined as outgoing Big Apple Circus founder, one-time ringmaster and artistic director Paul Binder.

Like Ringling’s late ringmaster Harold Ronk, who was himself a master diplomat who virtually never criticized big top people and the shows they presented (he did note, during a speech, that Ringling in his day was considered “the modern circus,” leaving the rest of the sentence for us to complete), Binder is equally prone to conceal any critical feelings. After all, he has spent thirty years fund raising and holding an organization together.

And yet, since Binder does not hesitate to discuss, class room style, the roots of circus and his producing guidelines, he is fair game for a set of candid questions (my wish list that follows), which he is never likely to take on. Were he to address these questions in book form, we might have something worth reading. So, I soldier on in hopes, waiting for Amazon to bring out Paul’s memoirs ...

Last week, taking to National Polite Radio’s Tom Ashbrook, Binder once again touted his oft-pitched deference to “virtuosity” as the leading criteria for selecting circus acts, along with, and he stressed this greatly, a co-criteria, “you have to be able to make contact with the audience.” Well, okay ..

He returned to this theme during the interview. “We want the audience to identify with the artists. These are not superheroes. They are people just like you. They get up in the morning ... what they show us is what we are really capable of ... that’s how the message gets across, that you identify with that person in the ring. They’re not a big superstar ... Oh, my, she could be a person — that’s a human being.”

So, exploring the idea that artists in spangles are just as likely to show up at the corner laundromat, let that be our Binderesque springboard into my questions for Paul:

* Circuses once brought mystery and magic, other worldly mystique into towns. Irvin Feld broke down the fourth wall when he invited audiences to participate more in his shows (in the specs, in pre-performance interaction with performers, etc). Does this marketing concept not match your own passion for wanting your performers to directly connect with the audience?

* Currently, Circus Vargas has its artists standing at the front door after the show lets out, in effect, a manipulative move to bond its patrons more intimately with its performers. Why have you not done the same, since this would surely advance your desire for artist and audience to connect on a more human level?

* Cirque du Soleil brought back loads of other worldly atmosphere into its tents, and for many years it has had little difficulty filling up virtually all of its seats. Is this mystique not part of what the public hungers for?

* When I attended two of your recent shows, Picturesque and, Celebrate!, certain outstanding performers (among them, Cong Tian and Gui Ming Meng) did not come off as trying to joyfully make contact with me, even though I found them to be tremendously entertaining. Were they exempt from your criteria?

* Were you able to sign arguably the world's greatest juggler, Anthony Gatto, would you require that he revise his act to bring in more of the "joyful" factor?

* When I saw the greatest act in my life, the Wallendas (before they "flew")execute with miraculous perfection and control — and courage — the 7-high pyramid, I don’t’ recall their lending the impression of a certain joy in what they were doing. Rather bravery and skill. Would they have failed under your tent?

* Since you endorse the idea of anybody being able to be a circus star, why are virtually none of your acts ever from the U.S. or from U.S. circus schools? Would this not advance and validate your philosophy?

* In the beginning, your short-lived New York school produced a few exciting acts. Evidently, they did not live up to your criteria, or you gave up on the idea. You maintain we all have it in us to be circus superheros. Then why are there so few United States-born citizens in your shows?

* Do you believe that such elements as bravery and daring do, of risk taking work against your preference for the “joyful” relationship between the audience and the show?

Circus owners, as a rule, shy away from sharing what they really think. Has any big top boss (John Ringling North, Louis Stern, Cliff Vargas) ever turned out a book of any significance? Early-day innovator dynamo William Coup did a pretty decent job in his Sawdust and Spangles: Stores and Secrets of the Circus --- I think. The Ringling Bros (via Alf T.) gave us a lovely little puff piece of a book describing their early years in the business.

And, so too, Paul Binder, I fear, will defer to a feel-good approach if ever a publisher can get pin him down to his memoirs.

Look for high-grade cotton candy and another cozy and safe NPR interview. For all of his talent, Paul is, I am beginning to realize, the ultimate spinmaster.

Read more »

Friday Fragments Flashing at Random: A Bio for Binder? Three Rings for Kelly Miller? ... Cirque Dogs and Favored Elephant Trainers ... Step Right Up!

It’s a smorgasbord out there, and most of it’s as tenuous as a tent show half pitched in a windstorm half matured ... You proceed at your own folly.

Paul Binder, now that’s he’s free of the life he likes the most, might think about penning his own bio. Man’s a scholar, say I, although, interviewed last week on NPR’s "On Point" by Tom Ashbrook, the Big Apple Circus man implied lack of faith in all bull men save for one named Bill Woodcock, whom you know, had his Anna May cavorting in the Big Apple Ring — until Ms. May seemed in the mood for retirement, at which time Bill told Paul, that’s it for me too. Now to NPR (national polite radio) said Binder, “He had a way with them [the bulls] that was wonderfully humane.... We felt there was nobody who was at the same wave with elephants as Bill Woodcock.” Yeah, that’s more than a fragment, and it leaves me feeling naggingly unimpressed ... One more fragment before we fly elsewhere. I can’t understand why BAC’s founder is so intent on proving that circus performers are not “super heroes’ but as average as the ticket holders, and of his desire for the public to see them as virtual next door neighbors. In this axis, we part affinities. I want mystery and mastery. Should a performer connect with the audience? Of course.

That was getting testy. Back to nice. Except that Baraboo is another not-so-nice at the moment, what with the Circus World Museum recently battered by Natzi artwork. Says the town’s default docent, Bob Dwell, who called up the police to give me an official reply, “I don’t think we have skinheads or any such thing here, but who knows, once in a while we are infected by crime fanning out from the cities.” Sleepy Baraboo is not exempt, evidently, from post-McCarthy Wisconsin ... Okay I said it ...

Walking around the midways out there in search of flashing fragments, I learn on Bill Strong’s Yesterdays Towns that Sonny Moore passed away. So did Lola Dobritch. I learn that Logan Jacot (Sawdust Nights) had a productive encounter turning the profane hostility of a circus animal hater into a convert for his side. “She actually apologized to me for being misinformed.” Logan’s patience may have paid off. Logan proposes making November “Change Somebody’s mind about circus animals month.” The kid is out there on the front lines of ignorance answering back with youthful reason ... Kudos, kid! He’s also asking, poll wise (I replied in the affirmative) should Kelly Miller go out as a three ringer? What a terrific question! Which makes me wonder if the “already buzzing” air at winter quarters that Jim Royal alludes to in an e-mail has anything to do with an expansionist minded John Ringling North II? Hey, I only promised you fragments of fact — or fiction ...

Onto other lots. I toured a few. Buckles Blog showing some neat post cards, one of Bring 'em Back Alive Frank Buck ... Wade Burck rolling forth a gorgeous photo panorama of exotics of various stripes and shapes ... Pat Cashin's Clown Alley -- love this guy’s admiration for some of the greats I glimpsed in my lucky boyhood, among them Paul Jung.... Balloon Man Dick Dykes sporting photos of Ford Bros. Circus '82 Alaska tour on his festive midway (my favorite blog for atmosphere) ... Dan the Booker touting Carson and Barnes for winning 19 votes, but for what I’m not sure ... Lots of polls going on. I should take one. Let’s see, should Carson and Barnes rename itself Cirque du Hugo Oklahoma? Cast your votes down at the runs! Well, people, they shucked aside rings, they're flirting with indoor venues. What next, the Byrds in berets?

...Oh, where else? What stunning photos under Buckles tent of Paul Kaye’s upcoming Evansville date. I ask you, does Kaye support himself merely on that one stint? What a dazzling three-ring spread clear up to the aerial heights ... Don’t count multiple rings out. Just when one tradition dies, it has a way of creeping back ... All the way over there in Italy, Raffaele De Ritis has up a great photo of the brothers Charlivels, sons of an act John Ringling North greatly admired but could never sign: Charlie Rivel.

Bits big and small for take out: Those brothers who got mauled by the San Francisco tiger going to court, and not happy about the smears against them by zoo operatives ... Here’s a random revelation: Since Cirque du Soleil is now using puppets to imitate performing dogs, does that not constitute their condoning performing animal by fostering the imagery? Just wondering as the French are known to do ... By way of Covington Connected: BAC landing Big Apple publicity galore: Grandma joining the clowns on Wall Street, trying to break the new depression jinx; Glowing notices in Gotham dailies; Visits to the Binder top by our nation’s most notorious Celebes, included but not limited to: Britney Spears (she’s out of rehab or jail again?) Tom Cruise (good guy, I suppose), David Beckman and wife-of-the-moment Victoria ... Circus-David (no, not me) talking up Carson and Barnes menegerie, and then: “I have caught PETA lying and distorting the truth in an effort to raise money to funnel to the Animal Liberation Front (a terrorist organization)” I take heart in voices like yours and the Sawdudst kid, David. When I walked the C&B lot, I noticed happy looking animals on tour. And I don’t think they were Cirque puppets...

Wrap it up, World, and have another cup of tea. And wrap it out, John Ringling North II, and show the world what your blood is made of!

Read more »

Sunday Morning, Looking Back: When Hollywood Came to Santa Rosa, I Made a Movie with Bette Davis

This originally appeared on November 25, 2008


While they cluttered the library grounds with poles and cables, platforms and light fixtures and smoke machines, I felt a rare privilege that magical October evening walking around the premises, eager and ready to be a part of it all. What chaotic excitement! Trucks loaded with costumes and props and tools along the street. People from Hollywood everywhere, walking this way and that with all sorts of things they needed to do their jobs. Ramps being laid out over which cameras would roll ...

They were shooting a film starring Bette Davis, at a time in her life when she was struggling to revive a foundering career. She had accepted a very daring role and threw herself into it full force.

“Santa Rosa library to burn for movie” headlined the Press Democrat. That’s the scene they were getting ready to shoot. About this movie then titled The Librarian, we were told very little. Nobody suspected that right under our innocent eyes the first-ever overtly anti-McCarthyism Hollywood film was being made.

My mom, my sister Kathy and I had each been given slips to appear as “extras” in a crowd scene, for which we were each to receive $3. And when finally it came time to assemble on a grassy area outside the entrance to the town’s Carnegie-endowed library, at last, my great moment was at hand!

So, okay, yes (pardon my shamefully deceptive headline up there), this was not really a film about Bette Davis and me. But hear me out, please; it was a film in which my mug, at least (I assumed), would show up when the movie came to Santa Rosa sometime in the future.

The city had dispatched three fire trucks and 12 fireman to serve as extras in the mock blaze. The towns’ residents had been warned well in advance not to mistake a movie fire for a real one and rush to their telephones in a mass panic.

A man with a bullhorn gave us some directions, none of which I can remember. Nice man, though. Then a hushed silence fell over the outdoor set, and I noticed figures in the near darkness moving about — Bette Davis in a dark brooding coat getting out of a car and walking up to the front steps, and a man, probably the tall gaunt actor Paul Kelly, meeting her and their exchanging a few words. We couldn’t hear what they said. “Cut!” shouted the man with the bullhorn.

He told us to stand by. They wanted to do another take. And then another. And then, all too soon, all of the temporary magic it had taken them so long to assemble melted suddenly away — like a circus vanishing down the tracks into a lonely stealing night.

When Storm Center(the film’s ultimate title) came to town the following year, I don’t know if I even saw it. If I did, it must not have impressed me any more than it had the critics. In hazy (or romantically self-misleading) recall, I can almost see myself with friends at the California Theatre watching the film and anxiously waiting for the library to go up in flames so that we could study the faces in the crowd, hoping to find some of our own.

In my mom’s diary for Thursday, October 6, 1955, she wrote “Kathy, David and I went down to the library where Columbia pictures is working. David got right up in front —should be seen in picture if they show that section.”

So, after all these years — hoping and waiting for Storm Center to be shown somewhere — it has never been released in VHS, is rarely shown in revival houses — Turner Classic Movies, God bless them, is at least showing it. This Friday at 4:30 AM. Okay, TCM, no problem. Not for the chance to see myself in the only movie in which I (maybe) ever appeared.

Storm Center was harshly dismissed by reviewers pounding away at overly simplistic scripting. The Legion of Decency of the Catholic church resisted the film because of what it deemed its "pro-Communist" leanings, although it did not outright condemn the film but established a separate classification for it. At the Cannes Film Festival in 1957, however, Storm Center was awarded the Prix de Chevalier da la Barre, cited as “this year’s film which best helps freedom of expression and tolerance.”

The film dramatizes the rising tension between the city council and librarian Alicia Hull, played by Davis, when she is pressed to withdraw a book titled The Communist Dream from the shelves.

Today glancing at film websites, I am surprised to discover so many positive reviews from film buffs who believe that Storm Center got a terribly unfair rap. On IMBd, the movie is treated like a misunderstood genius. “Masterpiece underestimated by everyone including Bette.” writes one. “This great film compares favorably with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, claims another.

Perhaps Senator Joe McCarthy’s HUAC hearing silenced, as well, a number of film critics who otherwise might have viewed Storm Center in a more appreciative light. Now I will get to see, at last, for myself.

My most vivid memory of those three weeks when Columbia Pictures spread its props and people, its cables and light fixtures across town, was an afternoon when I was walking down Fourth Street in the direction of the library. Quiet afternoon. Up the street passing me very slowly came a black Cadillac inside which I saw Bette Davis sitting in the back seat all to herself, looking regally ahead, as if she could hear and see a cheering Grumman’s Chinese Theatre opening night crowd.

Except that, on that quiet afternoon five hundred miles north of the shadowland of illusions, the entire crowd of gawking spectators consisted of only -- me. I have never forgotten that majestically revealing moment. It helps one stay humble.

[Photos, from top down: A scene from the film; Bette Davis confers with Santa Rosa's actual librarian Ruth Hall; Davis being interviewed by Santa Rosa Press Democrat Women's Editor Roby Gemmell; Davis being handed the first honorary membership card into the Sonoma County Humane Society by Michele Lahtinen]

A review of the movie, which I saw recently on TCM:


Perhaps all that Storm Center lacked was a more openly supportive press. Fifty two years later, I was finally able to watch the movie when TCM aired it early one morning. And what an impressive revelation if is. Although maybe far from the “masterpiece” that some contemporary movie buffs believe it to be, I was struck by Storm Center’s courageous if theatrically rough treatment of its central issue. Bette Davis turns in one of her most controlled and sympathetic performances — ever. This is a far better film than critics gave it credit for, full of intelligence and insight, even if Freddy’s reaction to the librarian he idolizes getting fired for her Red-tainted background is a bit over the top. But what an over-the-top-moment it is when he lashes out angrily at Hull during a children’s wing dedication ceremony, calling her a communist and telling her to get out. An unforgettably powerful scene, and what follows is a harrowing climax through the imagery of shelf after shelf of great books going up in flames. This civic disaster brings the community to its senses. The city fathers rehire the librarian they so shamefully disgraced, and she resolves to rebuild the library.

11.25.08

Read more »

Friday Flip Flops to New York: “Birdhouse Factory” Sends Critics Flying High; Variety Cools to Return of Wintuk

It’s all about how to cast circus skills in a newer context, that’s what’s up in the Big Apple at the moment, and where New Yorkers can examine two alternate forms — circus theatre and circus ballet.

Chris Lashua’s intricately clever Birdhouse Factory, which premiered in San Francisco in 2005, has grabbed the favor of a few adoring scribes, reaping flat-out raves. “Engrossingly entertaining,” sighs the unequivocal Lawrence Van Gelder in The New York Times, finding this one worthy of a parade of adjectives from “evocative” to “excellent.” Birdhouse performs a limited six-week run at the 499 seat New Victory Theatre in an intermissionless 90 minute package. Like a typical reviewer tossing praise at the nouveau troupes, Van Gelder spends most of his shine on standard circus tricks (what would these break-out shows ever do without them?). I’ve glanced at a couple of other similarly cheering assessments, one in TheatreMania.

Cirque du Soleil’s first bid for the moppet market with rich parents, Wintuk, is in its second season at the theatre at Madison Square Garden, where it opened last year to a chorus of boos from most critics and consumers, although it’s not certain what the kids thought. Here, bottom line, might tell us what the kids thought: Best seats this year sell for a whopping $220 — up from last year’s charitable $99.00. That tells me that either King Laliberte is doing another something very right — or he is out of his marketing mind. Variety’s man, Steven Suskin, about the only reviewer last year to give Wintuk a solid thumbs up (“happily for all, it’s a good one”) is not nearly so confident this time around. In particular, Suskin is bothered the most by a different, less enchanting young boy who is supposed to be about 12-years-old "but appears to be more than twice that" playing the lead. That’s the boy who longs to see snow. Thus, regrets Suskin, "the illusion of a young Alex in Wonderland has vanished." And the frail storyline line is what another ambivalent critic, the Times Jason Zinoman, terms a “rickety narrative.”

Zinoman, curiously, has lots to say in favor of the show, but then shifts suddenly into reverse, making me wonder if he really liked it but just couldn’t bring himself to embrace an extravagantly mounted work ($7 million to produce) from the Montreal monster. “Retains a cold corporate sheen that comes off as oddly downbeat and humorless; there are very few laughs, and none from the belly.”

What to think, believe? I’ve already seen Birdhouse, which I found theoretically brilliant though strangely morose — perhaps they’ve added more levity to the mix. Wintuk does greatly intrigue me, but would I hawk my modest little one-bedroom rental to pay for a ticket? I doubt it. I suspect that the engagingly good circus turns alluded to can be seen at far less pricier venues. And, frankly, the idea of a ducat topping two hundred dollars feels, well, like a cold corporate insult — especially in these bleak times ... Shame on you, Guy Ebenezer Scrooge!

Which brings us back to the beginning. And to a question we may be asking of both these arty alternatives a few years ahead: Whatever happened to the Circus of Soul put on last December at the Apollo theatre, which if I am correct was largely ignored by the critics but seemed to have left a few customers raving? Almost like asking, whatever happened to the Pickles of San Francisco? I don’t see any evidence they are presenting anything this Holiday, nor did they last Holiday. I'd go pay for a ticket.

These fringers certainly have some sort of an affect on the mainstream , but they tend to come and go rather than last and grow. I do think Chris Lashua is a very gifted guy, and I wish CDS would give him a chance to direct one of its future efforts.

Since I’m addressing the higher realms of circus art, I’m reaching back to honor my all-time favorite circus program magazine cover illustrator, a man named Walter Bomar, who designed prolifically for many major magazines, and for, now and then, John Ringling North, turning out my all-time favorite cover, seen here. It’s a fitting tribute, I believe, to Lashua and his younger colleagues seeking new modes of direction for timeless tricks on aerial bars and off springboards, with clubs in hand or partners in motion. Perhaps the guy who conceived Birdhouse, patterning its visuals after the work of Diego Rivera, will enjoy this image, created by, of all mortals, an Ardmore, Oklahoma native.

Bravo, Chris, to your wonderful New York Welcome!

Read more »