Death of a Salesman -- and/or An Actor?

To watch an actor who has appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company of London practice his craft in a community theatre setting is quite an experience. This was my treat yesterday up in Santa Rosa (pop 157.000) at the admirably striving Sixth Street Playhouse, where Death of a Salesmanan was presented.

I had never heard the name Daniel Benzali, who in the U.S. is known largely for his work in TV, his most touted role being that of Ted Hoffman in ABC’s Murder One. On the West End, he starred as Juan Peron in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita, and he also appeared as Max von Mayerling in the world premiere of Webber’s Sunset Boulevard in London.

And now he was in Santa Rosa playing Willy Loman in perhaps only the second production I have ever seen of this play. And proving to me that he possibly delivered as strong and persuasive a performance in the role as has ever been seen in a place where, ironically, he has never been — Broadway.

Sad and strange, from an internet search, Benzali appears never to have reached the elusive Great White Way. Surely this must haunt him as he essays the role of a road salesman whose career is on the skids and whose opportunities to ply his craft are fast vanishing. To the stage Benzali brought, perhaps, the simple power of real-life identification.

We were promised a “once in a lifetime chance to see one of America’s finest actors in America’s greatest dramatic play.” Going in, I wondered if it was hype. Coming out, I believed.

Now as for that second claim about the play itself, I'm not so sure. I recall being mesmerized by the televised version of Death staring Lee J. Cobb in 1966, in a truncated version (down to 100 minutes), to which the scissors had been judiciously put. In Santa Rosa yesterday, minus the scissors, the production’s first gripping act, nearly perfectly mounted, gave this company the look of the regional theatre it hopes to become. Unfortunately, Benzali was ill served by a choppy shouting match approach to the direction that occurred after intermission between the characters, who resembled a family in psychotherapy. Local director Sheri Lee Miller pushed the tension and frequent outbursts up too soon and too high, rendering the dynamics static and redundant. Nor did we get anywhere near a nuanced performance from actor Tim Kniffin overplaying the critical character of Biff. (How it made me long to be watching a musical instead.)

Or was part of the problem Miller’s own second act excesses? His inability to draw back and let a little of the obvious meanings hover in the air? Shortly after Miller died, the Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout, striking a singularly courageous view in an article titled "The Great Pretender," boldly dismissed the majority of Miller’s prolific output as being overly preachy and polemic. Having seen only one or two other Miller plays which left me numbly unengaged (including a leaden Crucible), perhaps I am rushing to premature agreement with the Journal in stating that I hold in higher regard the work of both Tennessee Williams and Lilian Hellman

But what a sublime pleasure it was to watch Benzali fall apart before our eyes spinning his impeccable craft for the tragic Willy in this respectable if ill-shaped production. His performance was underwritten. Still, I had to wonder what he was doing, a la Willy Loman, so far off the main road.

Friday Flip Flops: Spangles to Spandex; Ringling to Rungeling? And the Elephants Stay On Pointe...

Not a Big Apple thrill to everyone: A visitor to this blog who goes by the name of “Big Apple Got My Money”, not tickled over the new Big Apple Circus lineup, barking: “No elephants! No Exotics! Dogs and horses running to live music is not a circus! It’s men in spandex minus all the class of Soleil” I love that, even though, gotta tell you, let it be spandex or polyester as long as BAC goes high with a trapeze act and all the other goodies promised ...

Calling Red State Steady Eddie: Blue State needs you! You’re talking up packed houses for Carson & Barnes, recently of the 3- ring variety, in a June red date somewhere you promoted into a $50,000 bonanza, and nobody not returning after intermission. "We thought the show was great." Congrats, Mr. Natural Born promoter. How about donning a baby blue suit and helping Circus Vargas out of its blue state blues into red state black? "And listen to this," you say, "over 1,000 people showed up for set up." Heck, makes me feel more retrospectively lonely back there on that C&B lot at the dismally grey Cow Palace. Just me, the canvas guys, a few leisurely inclined animals and a stubborn introverted sun holding out until show time. Eddie the Steady, whom I nominate to replace no-show Joe the plumber -- Big Top the Battered needs you!

Unenlightened me: Janet, an avid pro-animals-back-to-the-wilds advocate, commenting here that “enlightened” people are turning more and more to jungle-free rings. She and others, of course, can say what they wish. So can I, and let me point something out, especially to a mean-spirited “Anonymous” back there harboring a fiction that big tops sans exotics do better than those with: Circus Chimera had no animals — no longer on the road. Circus Vargas, without animals, struggling. The Pickle Family Circus, which hatched, chicken free, the “enlightened” concept, has not toured for years. On the other vexing hand, folks, here are some still touring tents that dare to host the animal stars mostly because the public and its children still want them: Big Apple; UniverSoul, New Cole, Carson & Barnes and Kelly-Miller. And did I mention Ringling?

America Talks Back: It’s a pleasure to see some ladies on the other side of the issue shouting back: “You animal rights nuts are not compassionate people. You compare cows to lynched black men. You’ll sooner let monkeys roam the streets of new York than end a pandemic. You are below any level of rational or logical thinking.” And, may I charitably add, your “circus criminals” website attack is below the belt. You’d do your cause better by staying on point and clear of smear ...

Variations on a Household Name: About that secret Feld lawsuit settlement, here’s Neil Cockerline’s line on why John Ringling North II won the right to post his name (well, in certain places). Opines Neil, untangling Ringling-Feld legal history, Feld lost his hold on banning Ringling heirs from flaunting their names when the show went into and out of the Mattel morass, at which point parts of the original contract got red lighted or Barbie Dolled to death ... Are you with me so far, kids? I’m not going any deeper; I feel swamped at a law stand. Anyway, maybe Neil will tell us why on the cover of the program, it’s John R. North II and not the full family fame. I’m waiting, Neil. Also about K-M, Pat Cashin’s all a giggles over JRN II inviting his tiger man, Casey McCoy to hold the line in ‘09. Pat’s also hinting that he knows (could it be him?) who’ll be clowning it up next year for “America’s One Ring Wonder” (Al Ringling should be smiling in his grave over that charmed slogan)...

Why documents thrill: Nobody seemed much impressed when I reported on finding at the Circus World Museum two emotionally charged notes by John Ringling North the Original in his own unmistakable handwriting, one bluntly issuing his opinions of his 1951 opus after opening night; the other; a letter to Art Concello expressing turbulent affection while questioning Art’s talking behind John’s back and stressing that he (John) was the decision maker, yet ending I think with “Love, John." Obviously John valued Art, to whom he meekly turned in his darkest hour just after striking the tents for good in Pittsburgh. Here’s why I swoon over such discoveries: On PBS, presidential historian Michael B. (how could I ever spell his name this late at night?) sharing joy over a just discovered tape of JFK at the outset of his running for president, at his house talking freely about his feelings on many matters and showing altitudes not known until this tape. A note can trump a thousand pictures ...

End Ringers in red and blue: A You Tube delight: Those ambitious and impressively talented Circus Smirkus kids and their show, reminding me of my day on the Circus Kirk lot years ago. Auditions drew thousands and siphoned out a mere 17 for the final cut ... A living Wallenda named Nik, now on Ringling, wire walking for 235 feet high across the Garden State (how ill a choice of settings), and landing national tv exposure, for which Kenneth Feld, about to face court dates for alleged animal abuse, must be smiling.

Spangles to Spandex: So why not Ringling (in instances banned by the Felds) to Rungeling, which is how the family name was originally spelled? I mean like, John Rungeling North II presents Kully Muller? Blame my dizziness on a strain of Taiwanese tea called Jade Spring for the first time tested here at L’Amyx, as, in the background, something vaguely Parisian plays.

Yours the jaded in green state spandex ...

Shame on the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and American Musical Theatre of San Jose

"Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song!" -- claims a shamefully misleading pitch put out by the American Musical Theatre of San Jose. Actually, other than using the original songs, the San Jose group is not presenting the Flower Drum Song created by Rodgers and Hammerstein at all, but the callously deconstructed, rewritten, reduced and reconfigured version by Henry David Hwang, a brazen assault on the original work that got critically blasted in a flop New York revival in 2001.

San Jose and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization demonstrate brazen disrespect for the legacy of two musical theatre giants by misleading the public. This, in fact, constitutes one of the most deceitful marketing campaigns I have yet encountered.

San Jose's Flower Drum Song has nothing to do with the original or the novel by C.Y. Lee upon which the original show was based -- nothing, that is, if we are to regard plot and character as essential elements that distinguish any dramatic work. The original show was a hit on Broadway in 1958 and enjoyed an equally successful, equally long-running national tour. Evidently, they would now rather mount in regional theatre land a flop than a hit. They're funny that way.

When will the apparently expedient R&H Organization ever learn? Have they not a clue why the current revival of South Pacific in NY is such a huge hit? Could it be because this South Pacific is not a rewrite, but exactly what Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote and gave the world?

Shame on both of you, San Jose and Rodgers and Hammerstein!

Getting Short Changed in a Ringling Big Top -- Was it Condoned by North & Concello?

"Truth destroys only that which is untrue."
-- credited to the philosophy of Mary Baker Eddy

The remarkable account, by former Ringling ticket seller William Taggart, of an organized short changing operation on a circus long-acclaimed for shunning such a practice, raises questions that deserve to be addressed, if for no other reason than to substantiate as best we can the historical record. Although Taggart's tale refutes everything I have ever read and heard about Ringling history and ethics, I am prepared to face the facts, wherever they may take us.

In his fine article, just published in Bandwagon, Bill makes two key statements that point to an organized operation, if not run from the top down, then one hosted by ticket department superintendent William P. McGough. Most tellingly, Bill writes that, when he was offered the job of ticket seller in 1954, he was “expected” to participate — now, that’s a pretty strong directive, if you ask me; also, that he was told “not to worry about management,” which might mean a lot of things. To me, foremost, it means that management would take no punitive actions and therefore condoned what Bill was instructed to do.

Bill’s even-handed and well detailed account of the training he received from fellow ticket seller Tommy Reale, instructing him that a payoff for the “privilege” was to be passed along “each night” to McGough, comes off as credible. However, of greater interest to me is to what extent the “management” alluded to was actively and knowingly complicit in this operation. I have tried to seek clarification on the issue in e-mails to Bill. Regretfully, his vague and inherently contradictory replies, alluding to what is generally known about grift on circuses of the era, are not as persuasively detailed as his Bandwagon prose.

He claims the practice was necessary in order to make a decent living. He made about $30 a week. His meals and lodging came free, I assume, although he had to pay many fees, including for his bunk on the train and a seat at the cookhouse, he told me in an e-mail; more sweepingly, and here's the real shocker, Taggart claims in an e-mail to me that virtually all Ringling officials knew of various shortchanging activities on the lot and allowed if not sanctioned them. “What did JRN ever do to alert the public in 55 or any other year, and what tape are you referring to? ... JRN was very aware of what happened on the show, but expected it to be kept under control, and so was his brother Henry who spent more time on the show than JRN.”

The “tape” I refer to was this, played during come-in during the 1955 season:

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. All reserved seats must be purchased from the ticket booths stationed around the hippodrome track. We ask that you do not purchase or accept reserved seats from the ushers. Anyone occupying a reserved seat must have a ticket stub for that seat. Any person occupying a seat in the reserved section and who does not hold a stub for that seat will be removed from the reserved section. The general admission seats requiring no additional charge are located at each end of the tent. There is positively no extra charge for these general admission seats. Let us also call your attention to the prices clearly printed on the hats of all vendors. Please note the correct price, and pay no more. Thank you very much."

That sounds to me like management warning customers to beware of slippery dealings with ushers and vendors. In fact, it reminds me of what the five Ringling brothers did in their early years when they stationed a man next to the ticket wagon who shouted "Count your change! Beware of pickpockets!"

Curiously, even though Bill maintains that upper management was well aware of what was going, he also asserts, “I never implied there was a short change operation that was condoned...on the show you were not to have constant beefs so you had to cover yourself or a boss like Bill McGough or others would quiet the heat.”

And he also clearly implicates Art Concello when he refers to a statement that, according to him, was once made by Nina Evans to Irvin Feld: "Mr. Feld we all made money when Concello headed the show." I’m not exactly sure how you connect the dots from that comment to a management-mandated short change operation.

Now, if management did not condone what Bill was taught to do, could it be that McGough, minus Concello (who left the show at the end of 1953) found himself on a shaky if not sinking ship and defaulted to (how to put this politely) expedient mode? Or were Frank McClosky and Willis Larson, then in charge, behind the granting of privileges? Here is what I dug up looking through back issues of the Billboard:

The various rackets against the show and the customers became so pervasive that John Ringling North actually fired McClosky and Lawson, along with assistant manager Walter Kernan, in Minneapolis on August 6, 1955. As reported by the Billboard, "North charged that the discharged men had been more interested in privileges than in the show. They denied any connection with the set-ups he described."

Perhaps only Bill knows the answers to such critical questions his statements, intentionally or not, raise. And I hope he will provide them in the same fine detail that distinguishes his Bandwagon article, rather than through vague innuendo and insinuation.


Are we in a black and white world, or one of shadows and hints?

When I sat down with Phillip and Daisy Hall in Sarasota in 1986 while a tape recorder ran, during the nearly two hours we spent discussing a multitude of issues about their years on the show, the subject of grift in general came up. Phil came on Ringling in the forties as an usher, and left at the end of 1953; he had worked on the inside pass exchange booth and in the tax wagon, among other duties; Daisy was a show girl. Both enjoyed a friendship with Art Concello. On many occasions, Phil socialized with both Art and John Ringling North. Here is an exact word-by-word transcription of those parts of our conversation that addressed the topic:

PHIL: Shortchanging is I suppose what a lot of the ticket sellers did.
DAVID: Do you think short changing existed on Ringling, even?
PHIL: A little bit. Not big. Not much.
DAISY: Because they couldn’t get away with it.
PHIL: Of course, there was short-changing. Anyone who sells tickets, now, it might not have been blatant, but there are ways to have people leave their money. And there are, I’ve practiced it myself (laughs). Which is not shortchanging, but I’m sure, but the Ringling show, they were pretty vigilant about that sort of thing, now you couldn’t keep it all out.
DAISY: Yeah, because if you got caught doing it, you got fired.
PHIL: If anything, on the Ringling show, the people made money by rehashing tickets and things like that, which is holding tickets back and reselling them, which the show always paid for, not the public. There would be much more of that on the Ringling show because if you really short changed and they caught up with you, they’d fire you.
DAISY: They’d fire you.
PHIL: They didn’t want to disturb the public.
DAVID: And Concello, I guess, was strict about that, too?
PHIL. Oh ... [a key word; the tone of Phil's voice suggests gravity, not hesitation]
DAVID: He wouldn’t cheat the public, right?
PHIL: Oh, God no. Oh, no. Oh, absolutely. 100 percent. And he didn’t put up with much rehashing if he could catch it.

We are dealing here with a Ringling legacy built on a claim of fair dealing with the public, and I think that most of us can handle whatever truth surfaces — credibly. I have thoroughly enjoyed Bill's intimate inside diary accounts of his years on the Ringling show. So I do hope he will continue in his eye-opening account of his years on the Greatest Show on Earth. If the record needs to be recast, so be it. Until then, I'm still having a hard time reconciling the above-referenced actions that John Ringling North took with the idea that upper management either sanctioned or turned its back on the organized extraction of fees from light fingered ticket sellers for the "privilege" of shorting the customer. Call my inability to embrace such schizophrenia a lingering illusion.

[photos, from the top: William Taggart; Frank F. McClosky, general manager; Willis E. Lawson, manger, of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1954]

Friday Flip Flops: Brother, Can You Spare a Ring?

Digging for the truth over Dragonwell here at L’Amyx, let’s start out simple, and see where simple goes, okay? Rumorhazit (as Billy Barton would say), that John Ringling North II loses use of the Kelly Miller Circus title end of the season. Not anywhere near, says show manager Jim Royal. “The title came with the corporation, so we have it permanently. Like so many rumors, I have no idea why it started.” So there! Now, as for whatever became of that Feld Entertainment lawsuit against JRN II daring to flaunt his family name on show property, all I could extract from Sir Royal was this: “It was settled to the satisfaction of both parties,” and what's more, both parties agreed not to disclose the details. SO, we are free, for what it’s worth, to rumorize away. I must have been onto something, noticing “John R. North II Presents” on the program magazine cover and surmising it to be the work an intricate treaty ... And yet North’s full name appears in less conspicuous locations here and there, and I’ve heard it still graces the trucks. In tortured legalese, here's my summation: "Counseling lawyers stipulate variable truncations of contested name contingent upon contextual relationships to contractually mandated key words, henceforth pursuant to and as follows" ... All in all, looks like JRN II won some key wiggle room to flaunt away.

More bothersome are the revelations in Bandwagon about a structured short-changing operation on Big Bertha that allegedly flourished in the last canvas days. I earlier wondered what part the great late Art Concello may have played in this lucky boy racket. Turns out he wasn’t around when young William Taggart was tutored inside a bar by a light fingered pro on how to move money along ... Taggart’s commendable confession, you see, was unfortunately laid out in such a way (unintentionally so) as to make it appear that he was indoctrinated in 1953. No, the year was 1954. Mr. C. was gone. Until evidence surfaces to the contrary, I’m standing by what Phillip Hall , who worked the inside pass exchange booth, told me about Concello’s aversion to customers getting the Ben Davenport treatment ... And I’ve got much more about this sad fractured chapter to hyperventilate over up the road. Or would that be “down the road,” or — in the road?

Sure, it’s not always a sunny lot, is it. Ugly Anti-Semitism, for reasons unknown or unreported, strikes the Circus World Museum, and how terrible to see it happening in sleepy Baraboo. Fires lit late nights. Nazi symbols and slogans plastered in spray paint across the barns of history following similar vicious assaults since June, says exec director Stephen Freese to the Baraboo News Republic. “It’s just disgusting.” Not a word in the story about a motive, nor did an apparently under active reporter ask ... Subsequent reports point to white supremacy and anti-immigration movements in the area.

Let’s let some sunshine onto this murky midway. How about Big Apple Circus’s new talent spread, e-mailed to me by p/r staffer Phillip Thurston. On paper, program looks loaded to excite audiences big time. I see a tentbuster going up: Flying trapeze returns along with more gusto in the air, and riders on horseback! Now, all they need is a neat trio of cute and charming elephants. The band comes down around the ring, which sounds bandific. How I envy you who live on the east coast. Why, oh why, Paul and Michael, won’t you ever haul your sterling goods out to the west coast. We are NOT Chicago. Just stay clear of precious San Francisco — or board your star animals at the St. Francis Hotel and parade ‘em around town in special limbos.

Hard times ahead? Sorry it turned dark again so soon out here. As Wall Street jumps out skyraper windows and DC struggles to prolong America’s strange obsession with credit-diseased spending sprees (when will the entitlement madness ever end?), I reflect on the inherent goodness of hard-working circus folk, who troupe on for the love of it. Yes, as Alan Cabal reminds us. “If you’re in the circus to make money, you’re in the wrong line of work.” When did an actor ever help set or strike a set? When did a dancer lift a flat? Or a piano player move chairs around? Circus stars, when need be, will do that and more to keep the show on the road.

End Ringers: Wade Burck referencing the best opening ever for any circus book I ever read, which is how Henry Ringling North, in his great work with Alden Hatch, Circus Kings (just reprinted by the way) calls the circus “a jealous wench,” just for starters. Carson & Barnes playing Will Rogers Arena in Ft Worth for the Shriners, and Logan Jacot blogging ruefully about reports that C&B “closed today for the last time under canvas with a three ring show ... Is this true?” That’s what they say, Logan. October 5, where the 70+-year-old circus pitched its tent for the last time this year at Tucson, Arizona, could mark the end of an epochal American era which began back in 1872, when the crowds for P.T. Barnum’s tent show grew so large, they just had to add another ring. Now, they’re subtracting rings for reverse reasons.

Watching Circus Osario recently, the minimal experience reminded me of a day at John Strong, and it helped humble my future expectations. I’m ready to expect and appreciate less, ready to maybe invest in a lawn chair and prepare to sit around a topless circle marked in the grass by pins on a simple summer day, and watch young upstarts cavort as best they can. Ready to count my change and count my blessings, and wonder where it all went.

Brother, can you spare a ring?

[Big Apple Circus photos, from top: Christine Zerbini, by Maike Schulz; The Flying Cortes, by Bertrand Guay; LaSalle Brothers, by Bertrand Guay]

Lost in Film Noir: Dark Passage Through a City of Shared Loneliness....

In so many ways, a movie can pull us into its world and hold us captive for irrational reasons. No wonder nobody can agree on top ten lists. What enthralls me may bore you. So much depends on what we bring to the screen. I’ll be the first to admit that the moody late forties nightscape of San Francisco as dramatized in the Bogart-Becall film, Dark Passage, grabs hold of my soul like the city once did in my youth. In it are so many lonely little people living out their lives in quiet little studio apartments inside tall buildings crowded together on tall foggy hills. And when I see a neon sign spelling Fosters Restaurant, I recall busing dishes there — before the city’s subtle sophistication gave way to the in-your-face crowd. Before cable cars hitting the turntable at Market and Powell, when only a few local residents waited to board them, became just another tourist attraction in Disneyland by the Bay.

Dark Passage takes escaped San Quentin prisoner Vincent Parry, played by Humphrey Bogart, into a city of sympathetic loners and opportunists, none of them attached to anybody. Which makes it a searing portrait of shared loneliness: a cabby with a heart played by Tom D’Andrea; a wry plastic surgeon kicked out of the medical profession, brilliantly essayed by Housely Stevenson; Parry’s best and only friend, out-of-work musician George Fellsinger (Rory Mallinson), who dreams of playing his trumpet down in South America; and Irene Jansen (Lauren Becall), a woman who knows that Parry is innocent of the charges that sent him to prison and will risk anything to help him escape the nightmare.

Redemption: It arrives in promising degrees: in a bus station where a lonely man bonds with a lonely woman and her kids; and in South America, where the two leads — well, you must go there yourself.

There is so much more here — for one thing, the story unfolds tautly with not a wasted moment — which makes it hard to understand why this film was so ill reviewed when it was first released. Surfing the net sixty years later, I find many contemporary fans. Count me one. Another superb film in this key is Bogart’s In A Lonely Place. Casablanca? I’ll take the other two. But then again, did I not mention the irrational viewing factor — Minor scenes meticulously shaped. Minor characters who create major moments. The utter cinematic perfection of Lauren Becall. A superb Franz Waxman and Max Steiner score that knows when to go silent. Stunning views of a stunning city. All of it so sadly perfect in black and white.

[originally posted 10/8/08]

Midweek Midway Mix: John Ringling North II Tastes Chicago Success; Cirque Du Soleil Lays Monster Egg in Vegas? ... Big Top Bail Outs?

So you want to be a circus owner? So you think you got the goods? So go try your luck in tough fickle Chicago and then see. It’s a town of straw houses or raw houses. The late Cliff Vargas struggled for respect, mostly in vain. Binder and Christensen, whose Big Apple Circus should have done well there, did not. Left ‘em humbled. No, sir, the windy city can turn on your tents like a sub prime nightmare. Kelly-Miller just enjoyed near-full houses last weekend, and that’s something to Ringling about — or John R. North about. (It’s that Feld Entertainment litigation thing, you know.) Nonetheless, JRN II dared to tell a reporter along the road that it was time to return to the family business. “When you are born in the circus,” said he, “you might go away but you never forget.”

Guy Laliberte may be wondering if he’s losing it, or overextending his global ambitions following the rocky launch of his latest Vegas entry, evidently a flimsy thing called Believe at the Luxor starring tv illusionist Criss Angel. Opening night crowds dozed off ... Down the Don Covington chute comes a story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal noting a dreadful reception. London fans flying over to preen for the premiere were left mumbling unpretty expletives to themselves. “Dude, it’s a train wreck,” groaned one. This I think more than ever: Guy Laliberte sold 20% to Dubai because he’s dug himself into a hole, having promised too many venues too many new shows that he suddenly lacks the money to fund. Believe may bear the tell tale marks of a famished Montreal kitty. Or has the dude lost his billions in high stakes poker “derivatives”? Might Canada have to bail out its famed circus reinventer? CDS’s infallible image could erode fast with bad word-of-mouth getting stuck to any of its teflon tents.

Talk about deception, why I like the Bandwagon: It’s unafraid, as I see it, to disclose historical truths, and now it’s Ringling’s turn to be sullied with the onus of shortchanging rituals. In my gut, I can’t imagine the Ringling family ever tolerating this, although surely John Ringling North sensed its sketchy existence; we know he tried up until the final canvas days to root canal it. Anyway, I applaud the courage of ticket seller Bill Taggart and the straight ahead Pfennigs for telling the story. After all, unfair to point fingers at others and give Ringling a Sunday school pass. Speaking of grift, Lane Talburt takes on more of Ben Davenport, whose notoriously crooked and ultimately self-destructive Daley Bros. Circus has always been a vexing artistic enigma to me. Talburt makes it crystal clear how flagrantly crooked an operation the man ran. And another reason why (Norma, please turn away, I love you forever), Mr. D’s shocking addition to the anybody-can-be-honored Sarasota Ring of Fame has reduced that sideshow circle down to junk bond status. No wonder why, when I took a bus out there a couple of years ago, the driver had never heard of the place.

Big tops may be shrinking, not the books about them. Cheering the epic photo spread of The Circus: 1870-1950, Amazon reviewer Jack Hunter weighs this laptop library in at about 20 pounds. Which makes me wilt and wonder, does the book arrive in sections preceded by a flying squadron table of contents? Next in the parade comes Raffaele De Ritis of Italy, with a new tome in Italian, Storia del Circo. 580 pages, 300 illustrations. Sounds like a pocket book compared to the other giant. I think I’d rather learn Italian than take up weight lifting.

End ringers: Water for the Elephants, the best selling novel set in the depression, set for the big screen by Fox ... Big Apples’ latest, Play On!, uncorking to a warm notice in the Washington Post. Show has returnee Guimming Meng, who works a thirty five pound vase on his nimble noggin. This is one of the best realized acts I’ve ever seen. Perfect in form, development, execution and crowning climax. Another item on the BAC bill, identical twin brother jugglers, Marty and Jake LaSalle, set to go their separate ways at the end of the season, one into med school. Why do I feel strangely uninspired? Nobody walks out on the circus, dudes! ...

Thank you Barbara Byrd, for bringing your Carson and Barnes Circus to San Francisco, city of my birth. You turned a Cow Palace parking lot into sacred asphalt for me, for that’s were I will have likely witnessed my last three ring circus if you stick to your downsizing threats. Rues local fan Adaline, sharing my sadness, "I too, felt as though I was watching a moment in history." In 1948, RBBB played the Palace for the first time and turned ‘em away by the thousands. 1955: I saw Big Bertha there for the first time in an arena, the day after the only day I ever saw Big Bertha under canvas. In fact, it was in SF. where I saw my first circus, at the Civic Auditorium (Shrine produced by Polack and Stern, who loom much higher than many Ring of Fame inductees).

Lastly, under Buckle’s big tent (I should sneak in more often), I discovered some rumoring about JRN II only having the K-M title for two years, and then what, wondered one? Proposed another, why not “John Ringling North presents The Circus.” Not so easy, I fear, in the shadows of the Feld lawsuit, which I have to assume, given what I see, has restricted North’s use of his full name. Might have to be “John R. North, permission granted by K. Feld, presents the circus formerly known as R. Brothers Barnum & Bailey.” And here he is in person, daring to visit the big cage with Kelly Miller cat man Casey McCoy. Note to a matriculating tycoon: Not so sure about your Clyde Beatty impression. I see more of a slack wire walker in you, or maybe a little rolly bolly. But, please, don't go near the hula hoops ...

And that’s a wrap that needs a bailout — by tomorrow, Mr. Paulson, or this tent blows down.