Sunday, August 11, 2019
Bloomington, IL
Bleary-eyed, I walk the rental car parking lot three times. My furrowed brow reveals my thoughts, She said A20. How is there no A20? It starts to drizzle. The wind picks up and slides right through my thin cotton pants. Goosebumps perk up as I give up and shuffle back to the car rental office. My arm is threatening to dislodge from its socket as I drag my small suitcase over the gravel walkway for the fourth time.
A tinge of mold meets my nose as I descended to the basement room. Airbnb is a stupendous organization, but there is something to be said for the guaranteed creature comforts of a hotel. I’ve been up all night; my bones welcome — demand — a lengthy nap.
Monday, August 12 – Thursday, August 15, 2019
Illinois State University, Normal, IL
The Milner Library has a daunting six story flat, brick façade that stares me down as I push through the rotating doors. Two public service stickers exactingly placed in the bottom left corner of each door window becomes a carousel of library etiquette: no smoking, no guns, no smoking, no guns, no smoking, no guns. Maureen Brunsdale, Head of Special Collections and Rare Books, and Mark Schmitt, Special Collections Specialist, are my first beacons of light through what will be a murky ocean dive into circus history.
Whenever I tell someone I am researching the spectator experience of circus, I am usually met by genuine interest coupled with raised eyebrows at the topic’s enormity. I get the sense that my listener feels a responsibility to shield me from biting off more than I can chew. I am not naive to the size of my expedition. My thoughts are constantly swirling amongst the solar system of variables that contribute to the feelings and memories one person experiences during a single live performance. Like space, these variables are endless and constantly expanding. And yet, here I was, starting a venture in which I had proposed to research multiple facets of American circus through an entire decade; raised eyebrows were well deserved.
First, I’m just skimming the surface.
If archeologists discovered an elephant footprint — let’s say, left by the famed Jumbo — preserved in dried circus lot mud, this static relic might easily tell us the pachyderms’s weight, height, etc. I want to get under Jumbo’s skin and into his head. I want to be an internal archeologist. I want evidence of the sensations of that moment — the chill of a damp morning, the noise from the cookhouse, the taste of the air in a new town — and more importantly, the feelings — the excitement of a new show day, the anxiety of poor weather or the peacefulness Jumbo may have had with his trainer, Scotty, constantly at his side. I search for the ephemeral of circus. My hope is to find evidence of sensations recorded by people who have experienced live circus events. The amount of material available to me on this research trip was far, far too much to exhaust in just three weeks. It might as well have been a veritable herd of elephant footprints that had paraded miles of land.
And I repeated, I’m just skimming the surface. I’m just skimming the surface…
Second, I may find nothing, and that’s ok.
This mantra made the discovery of a pertinent comment that much more rewarding. It was like the glint of a gem amidst the piles of route books, articles, photos, newspaper clippings, magazines, letters or show programs I sifted through. One such gem, “The Circus… A Mirror of Your Latent Desires” by Nomer E. “Slick” Reynolds (printed in the 1966 November-December edition of White Tops, a publication produced by the Circus Fans of America) walks the reader through the sensations of Circus Day. In an introspective moment while watching a wire walker, the narrator thinks, “You reflect a moment upon the times you and the kids next door used to balance yourselves on the track of the railroad when you were a boy. Suddenly you realize that this pretty little thing is simply doing what you stopped doing, for something you believed to be more enduring, as well as more socially acceptable. But, which is the more natural, the most unadulterated by false motivation? You know the answer to that; and your own life, though respectable, proves it” (Reynolds).
The misogyny is not to be ignored, and this is a tame example from the multitude available in the article. This article, as most I came across, was written by a white man. Despite the fact that American traditional circus, as a singular art form, crossed many lines that pushed social, gender and racial boundaries, its history has not escaped being recorded by the dominant white, male, western gaze. Reynolds attempts to broaden his narrator’s experience to a more universal one by personifying the form.
The circus weeps, it boasts, it needles, it prays… and it bows to the respect it has maintained in your eyes. It has met tragedy, lots of it, and it has bathed in the sunlight of prosperity and joy. It will always carry in its magnitude the humbleness of spirit, that has come with the adversities it has suffered. It may brag, flaunt itself, to bring you to its doors, but it will plead with you to let it keep its sacred honor. How identical it is to you and me. . .
Earlier in the article, Reynold’s narrator asks, “What is the common bond of kinship between man and circus?” Indeed, what keeps spectators coming back? I am certainly not the first to approach these questions. Circus scholars including Janet Davis, Paul Bouissac and Erin Hurley have written wonderful books and articles about the experience of circus. They have been my inspiration, my guide.
The occasional gem, such as Reynold’s publication, was encouraging, mantras are soothing, but I had to get practical. How was I going to set myself up for success with such limited time at each of these institutions? I made rules.
- Focus on Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey (henceforth noted as RBBB). Being the largest circus institution in America at that time, their shows would have been seen by the most people and covered by the most press.
- Break down the spectator experience into four categories: expectations (marketing as well as previous spectator experience); show content; cultural context; kinesthetic relationship to the art form.
- Focus on the 1956 closing of RBBB tented shows in favor of stadiums and arenas; a business decision that I suspected greatly impacted the spectator experience.
Even with these parameters, my task at hand was daunting and often uncomfortable.
Two hours in I realize my shoulders are up to my ears and my nose is running a bit. The dropped temperature in the collection, which is necessary to preserve the various kinds of printed materials and artifacts, has sent a winter’s day chill to my sinuses. Added to which, behind my eyes aches something fierce. Reading for hours is one thing; scanning requires, apparently, a different set of muscles.
After canvassing twenty-one show programs, eighty-four editions of White Tops, a stout collection of Circus Review articles which spanned four years of community news, and an entire unpublished book by Sverre Bratthen (a circus devotee, to say the least), the two publications I found most useful were not written by circus folk nor circus fans. Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck each authored an article that opened, respectively, the 1953 and 1954 editions of RBBB’s Circus Magazine & Program. Their poetic language that dipped into the heart of circus was exactly what I was looking for. Hemingway wrote, “The circus is the only ageless delight you can buy with money.” He also sums up the active, embodied, visceral spectator experience that I was scrounging for hour after hour. “With some of the people you sweat their acts out with them the way they sweat them out themselves,” and, “After you go home, having seen the show and now owning it so that it is part of your experience” (Hemingway). Steinbeck wrote, “Every man and woman and child comes from the circus refreshed and renewed and ready to survive. What doctor can do as much?” These sentences are nestled in between sensual descriptions of the feelings of circus — some tactile, some psychogenic, others spiritual. These articles, particularly due to their authors, made me realize that evidence of the spectator experience might be hiding in the poet’s verses, personal diaries, letters, novels, songs or reviews of shows. An informed critic’s eye might be able to shed some light on the spectator experience. Better yet, the uninformed critic may write a response that more accurately echoes the experience of the general populace. The Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive houses digital copies of two important magazines that printed reviews of circus shows: Billboard and Variety. The internet provides me access to this database, so I pocketed the task of combing through those resources. I preferred to spend my time with the primary sources in the archives I was traveling to that have yet to be digitized.
During my first week of research at ISU, I was reminded of two important facts that shaped the remainder of my quest. First, traditional circus in America was big business. Success was measured by income and therefore profits got recorded. Most publications about the circus were written by circus fans and their writing fixated on the mechanicals of the business. Many, many show reviews consisted solely of a production’s inventory with scant mention of the acts or artistry. While following the money trail is one way to gauge audience satisfaction (high ticket sales must mean people appreciate the show), and how the circus moved, fed, housed, and kept generally healthy and happy 1,300 people and hundreds of animals with specialized needs is absolutely fascinating, I am wholly uninterested in falling down those statistical rabbit holes. Rather, embodied memories excite me. I prefer to ask, as Hemingway put it, what do people ‘own’ when they leave the circus?
Friday, August 16, 2019
I drive with the windows down. There is so much sky — so much sky! — between Bloomington, IL and Madison, WI. The blast of highway air rings in my ears as I am welcomed by a Mrs. Doubtfire doppelgänger at her beautiful home and country garden, my home base for two days of respite and urban exploration.
Early Monday morning I unhurriedly make my way to the quaint, cozy town of Baraboo, WI, home of the Circus World Museum and the Robert Parkinson’s Library and Research Center. I’ve encountered another cave of wonders of historical circus documents.
Monday, August 18 – Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center, Baraboo, WI
Although I had consciously decided to ignore the digitized reviews available to me via Billboard and Variety for the time being, The Robert Parkinson’s circus archives have the original Circus Correspondence Worksheets that Billboard journalists used to document their observations of local circus productions. These proved potentially better source material than the reviews themselves because they included candid observations of the event that may not have made it to print. There were notes that had a personal touch, “A very exciting and interesting show. I’m going back and take my kids” (Billboard, RBB & B). Others were quick to the point, but too sparse to actually give any profound information, “Good acts, enjoyed by children and adults” (Billboard, Polack Bros.). Or, “Very poorly received” (Billboard, Mills Bros.).
The following comment about the Polack Bros. 1957 show in Galesburg, IL caught my eye, “Played to a ‘good’ audience all performances” (Billboard, Polack Bros.). This could have two meanings. ‘Good’ could mean well attended, or, for performers, the audience was ‘good’ if they reciprocate energy, interest, response to the acts, usually in the form of applause. The reciprocity of physical and vocal energy informs, colors and shapes the experience for everyone present.
The worksheets had dedicated fields to record weather, competing performances or community events, advertising logistics, mishaps that occurred, show attendance and production income. Again, as in the White Tops and Circus Review, numbers and statistics reigned while sentiment was scarce. The following entry detailing an April 1959 performance of Mills Bros. circus in Clyde, Ohio was surprisingly verbose. It also gives insight as to how information was gathered from audiences.
The report begins, “A cross-section ‘man on the grounds’ inquiry of youngsters and oldsters attending the circus indicated ‘a good show.’ Comments from village officials and residents in the area of the circus commented it was a well mannered troupe and clean. No trouble. ” Shows being described as ‘clean’ cropped up repeatedly in these accounts. This usually meant the production did not offend the community’s morals, but sometimes journalists quipped at the actual hygiene of the performers, employees or, particularly, the candy butchers who handled the food for purchase.
The comments continue, “Parking areas helped combat a part of the rainy weather attendance wise as it was all street parking — no muddy or soggy field.” This was one of the huge perks of presenting shows in arenas rather than tents. Both troupers and patrons didn’t have to deal with mud and damp grounds. Depending on the type of soil and amount of rain, there were times when the tents could not be put up because the ground wouldn’t hold. Despite this, nature still affected attendance.
The journalist goes on, “Electrical and rain storm hit shortly after matinee was over. Stopped raining by time of evening performance but sky was overcast and weather turned cooler which was responsible for the low attendance at the evening performance. Another factor aiding the afternoon performance was the dismissal of the schools.” Circus day was so important in communities that often school was canceled so whole families could attend the full day of festivities. The final sentence gave some insight as to the cultural habits of this particular community, “Advance sale of tickets were very slow, mainly because people here do not desire to plan too far in advance” (Billboard, Mills Bros.).
My head would spin when I imagined following the trail of research. I’ll hunt down the printed review of that show in the Clyde, Ohio local paper. Maybe pictures exist of the circus lot. Maybe a face can be identified in the crowd! Hopefully they were an avid diary-keeper, and maybe that diary has been preserved, and under the entry for July 24, 1957, they wrote in detail about their experience of the circus…
When these moments hit, I thought of the sage advice I got from Pete Shrake, Archivist at the Parkinson’s Library. He mentioned that many of the performers or avid fans that may have kept personal records about their time with the circus in the late ‘50s and ‘60s are still alive. Their papers and memorabilia haven’t made their way into the drawers of archives yet, and it may not for many years to come. These things get passed down to children, forgotten about in attics or tossed out. It could be many years before the bulk of records for this time period make their way into a collection for researchers like me to poke through.
If I don’t find anything, that’s okay…
Thursday, August 22, 2019
I have forgotten to look for the stars! Here they are in full regalia at 3:30am as I leave for the airport. An early morning flight to Sarasota, Florida awaits me, but I have to take a moment to tilt my head back and soak up the brilliance of the country sky. We simply don’t see this in New York City. It’s worth the temporary neck ache to breath in the ancient light of the solar system — starlight is good for the soul.
It’s only ten in the morning, and Florida is as hot and humid as anyone might have expected it to be on a late August day. I’m beyond groggy, and the thick air makes me feel a little woozy. I’m looking forward to a cool car ride from the airport to The Ringling Museum. Wait, that can’t be right. Google says it’s only six minutes to my destination!
The car barely has time to cool off and I’m killing the engine. I shake myself awake, repack my backpack from air travel to research mode and make a plan to get some food. More importantly, get some coffee.
Thursday, August 22, 2019 – Wednesday, August 28, 2019
The Ringling Archives, Sarasota, Florida
The archives are tucked in a corner on the second floor of the Tibbals Learning Center. The space is casually blocked off by a single stanchion. It’s simple security for a treasure trove of circus artifacts. Completely incognito, circus legends and history experts slip in and out of the unsuspecting portal. Some are staff members, some volunteers, but all are dedicated to both preserving the art form and finding ways of engaging the community in its truly awesome history. The archives sit above the Howard Bros. Circus model. The model is a hand-crafted miniature circus comprised of 40,000 pieces made perfectly to scale. Each piece has been recreated in jaw-dropping detail from photographs of RBBB circus productions. More pieces and details are still being added. I was honored that Peggy Williams, the first female clown to be hired full-time by The Greatest Show on Earth, gave me a tour of the model. She pointed out details that the layman’s eye wouldn’t realize the significance of — like the bathrooms.
Earlier that day, when I was first introduced to Peggy, she heard I was studying the shifts in spectatorship from tents to arenas and without hesitation she cried, “Bathrooms! Nobody will talk about it, and you won’t find it in the newspapers, but the biggest change in spectator experience was the bathrooms.” She went on to explain, and then later point out on the model, how the tented shows would simply dig a series of holes on the circus lot, pitch one tent over one half for women and another tent over the other half for men. Men also got a trough that they could stand over; it’s also in the Tibbals model. These were the accommodations offered to patrons at tented shows, so one can imagine the appreciation circus-goers had for indoor plumbing at arenas. Indeed, I have yet to read anything about bathrooms in my research. Other urban modernizations, parking and air conditioning, get attention in print, but these had their sacrifices too. Peggy noted that when everyone parked in a parking garage, the fun of walking through the field of fancy cars was lost; part of the spectator experience was experiencing other spectators. A different kind of circus parade, one in which patrons performed status for each other.
Also, I have yet to come across a downside to moving circus productions into climate controlled spaces. From the spectator’s point of view, Reynolds gives his reader a whiff of the circus tent, “The tent is nearly filled now, and where you smelled the canvas and grass before you now smell the hot human flesh that surrounds you.” Climate control most certainly appealed to spectator comfort, but it is particularly beneficial to the performers. Aerialists and wire walkers performing dozens of feet in the air were subject to much higher temperatures in tents, and in a profession where the slipperiness of sweat can be deadly, temperature control can be vital.
And yet, what was gained in arenas may not have outweighed the costs to the art form. The Ringling archives have massive scrapbooks of newspaper articles regarding circus from the New York City and New Jersey area printed in the late 1950’s. One article titled “Circus Sneaking into City in Bits” printed in the New York Times in 1958, describes the stealthy arrival of the circus to Madison Square Garden. Animals and equipment slid in to the metropolis via truck and train but were delivered directly to the Garden’s basement rather than unloading in a public space as had been the custom for decades. Performers filtered into the city separately on flights or trans-Atlantic liners. This was all quite different form the familial scene of the whole circus traveling and arriving together as a unified community.
The change did not go unnoticed. In response to the aforementioned article, Anita Colby, wrote, “There was a time when this event burst on the city with the shrill joy of a steam calliope— and was the curtain-raiser on a circus seasons which embraced all of North America… there is no one single glorious dawn when a child with a good alarm clock can be assured of getting a preview of the wonders to come by standing, shivering but delighted at a railroad station… this kind of circus doesn’t seem to be as much fun as the kind I grew up with…” (Colby).
It’s no secret that RBBB was in financially dire straits the years leading up to 1956. Several letters I read in Sverre Bratthen’s correspondence proves that circus fans and performers alike had the end in sight. From a business perspective the move saved the circus. The years following the closing of the tent, RBBB reported record income. Yet this doesn’t necessarily mean they were actually making more money, nor does it doesn’t mean more people were purchasing tickets, and it bodes no evidence if spectators were actually enjoying the production. I didn’t follow the money trail, but a very simple observation shed enough light on the matter. In 1955, RBBB played one hundred and thirteen locations in continental America. The year the tent closed and the circus season ended abruptly in July, 1956, RBBB played forty-four locations. In 1957, the show played just forty-three. Producing less than half the number of performances from 1955 to 1957 must have cut costs considerably.
RBBB thrived, entertained, and wowed Americans for many more decades. Despite what was lost when RBBB paved the way for traditional American circus to move indoors, it was a shift prompted by cultural changes, and it made it possible for the show to reach new generations of spectators.
September 6, 2019
Brooklyn, NY
Circus is a ritual that has been ingrained into American culture. Paul Bouissac describes how because nothing changed about circus for so long — the sights, the smells, the sounds — spectators were able to predict and find comfort in this repetition even as cultural context changed. Circus is likened to an annual religious ceremony in which spectators connected with their circus ancestors of the past. Rupert Sheldrake describes this exact same phenomenon as morphic resonance. He then expands upon the concept by saying the only way to discover the new is within a repeated, ritualistic structure. The friction between the old actions and the new context are what create the tension necessary for renewal (Sheldrake).
What happens when the structure of a ritual changes? Disappears? What happens when we are provided with pre-generated, pre-packaged newness rather than discovering newness within the frame of ritual?
I have yet to finish combing through all of the resources I was able to collect on my summer research travels and piece together the trajectory of the spectator experience during this crux in circus history. As I do, it will also be important to take stock of what I didn’t find. Bathrooms, parking and air conditioning are important features, but there was a distinct lack of testimonies that detailed the emotional and visceral experience of circus. Yet, I did come across dozens of examples of traditional circus in America described as a dream. As Jennifer Posey, Circus Curator at the Ringling Museum, said in a conversation, part of the magic of circus was that it completely changed the landscape for a day. An entire city of tents were built early in the morning, and while spectators were watching the evening show in the big top, the whole city started to get torn down around and unbeknownst to them. When they exited the big top, the cookhouse, the midway, and many of the animals would have simply disappeared into the night (Posey). The surreality of circus was ingrained into its function. Its daily rituals naturally produced wonder for the spectator. And although the architecture around the show changed drastically, the humans, the sweat, the dedication and the impossibility of the feats performed in the ring have not changed all that much. Watching circus is still a ritual from which spectators are enlivened.
February 23, 2017
Brooklyn, NY
I walk into Barclay’s Center. It’s a huge, cold, concrete arena. Fluorescent lights are bright and children clamour for flashing LED swords and other light up spinning contraptions. The crowd shuffles through metal detectors, bags open, pockets empty. Although we are all here to enjoy the same production, although we have all purchased a ticket with the expectation to be entertained, infused with a little laughter and joy, this mass of people bumping and wandering creates no sense of community. At what point does a crowd become so large that you stop feeling camaraderie with your fellow spectators?
The opening act features three astronauts in full space suits. They landed center ring, then slowly climbed a large rotating space station taking care with their movements due to the lack of gravity. They walk a thin, rounded beam that spans the circumference of the space station while it continues to rotate. It is perilous work. Using a wire-walkers balancing pole, they explore the terrain, ride a bicycle, and dangle in the atmosphere. I marvel at the technical skill it takes to do all this in a space suit, and then I think, “Where else? Where else do humans have a platform to do such ridiculous things?! Such wonderfully absurd, fantastic, ridiculous things! The circus is amazing.”
The best part isn’t the spangles and glitz; it’s the humanity. What you see is real. You can’t deny that contortionist just put her toes next to her eyeballs. You can’t deny that juggler just kept seven balls suspended, spinning in the air. Yes! That performer just stuck an entire sword down their throat. You can’t fake a handstand on top nine stacked chairs. There is no trick to a flying trapeze act. It’s grit, and hard work, and time – so much time – spent perfecting these absurdly beautiful skills. It’s real. Watching circus performers always leaves me with the feeling that I can do anything.
And this is exactly the feeling I have as I watch the beautiful, surreal opening act to one of Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey’s final performances. After 146 years, the entire production is closing in just a few weeks. A national pastime and national treasure will now officially become history. I feel lucky to have seen it. I feel lucky to have felt it. I hope – and I know – that as circus shifts with cultural tides, as it always has, future generations will find a dream-like moment, a sensation of awe and become energized with inspiration.
Works Cited
Billboard Circus Correspondence Worksheets, Box #3: Mills Bros 1959, Circus World Archives. Print.
Billboard Circus Correspondence Worksheets, Box #3: Polack Bros 1957, Circus World Archives. Print.
Billboard Circus Correspondence Worksheets, Box #3: RBB & B 1960, Circus World Archives. Print.
“Circus Sneaking Into City in Bits.” The New York Times, 30 March 1958.
Brubaker, Bill. “New Health Center Targets County’s Uninsured Patients.” Washington Post, 24 May 2007, p. LZ01.
Colby, Anita. “The Dear Dead Days…” New York Journal-American. 3 April 1958.
Hemingway, Ernest. “The Circus.” Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus Magazine & Program, 1953, 7.
Posey, Jennifer. Personal interview. 23 August 2019.
Reynolds, Normer E. “Slick”. “The Circus… A Mirror of Your Latent Desires.” White Tops, November-December 1966, 39 – 42.
Sheldrake, Rupert. “Rupert Sheldrake – The Power of Religious Rituals (Video Lecture).” YouTube, uploaded by Fractal Youniverse, 13 January 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=isLcBKL1SUw.
Steinbeck, John. “Circus.” Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus Magazine & Program, 1954, 7.\
Williams, Peggy. Personal interview. 23 August 2019.