The Morning Midway: Cirque du Soleil's Banana Shpeel NY Opening Delayed Again ...

Add three more weeks onto your wish list for an opening night seat at a show reported to be deeply in trouble, currently in pre-Broadway rehearsal (or re-birthing) in the windy city ... Originally slated to take the Beacon Theatre stage in January, Chicago tryouts slipped into creative chaos and wretched consumer and critical feedback, so Banana Shpeel moved back its opening night back to February 25.

Now, as witness this small add in Sunday's New York Times (so meek compared to a full page splash in same paper a few weeks ago), seems Guy Laliberte's latest "reinvention" will now uncork on March 17 -- barring further birthing glitches. I'm still not convinced this thing will raise a curtain over Big Apple land. On the other hand ...

This banana could maybe be not a disaster but a triumphant turkey attracting curiosity seekers to a new form of old vaudeville. With Cirque, you just never know. Problem is, you need comedy writers for a variety stage show more than you need mindlessly exotic Cirque du Soleil acrobats. Vegas next?

At the Olympics: Dancing on Thin Ice

Inconceivable that NBC should hold back the men's figure finals until around 10 PM or after out here on the coast, and yet give prime time coverage to compulsory dance. I am now convinced beyond a shadow of Jay Leno that NBC is run by idiots.

Because of this inane scheduling, I missed watching Evgeni Plushenko and Evan Lysacek battle it out.

The old compulsory dance event is simply too redundant and too similar to the original set patterns, either of which would be a sufficient lead in to free dance finals.

Athletically speaking, dance has little credibility at the Olympics. And it's easy to see why the ballroom crowd has been clamoring for years for a place at the summer games, just as have roller dancers, who -- in the compulsory division, bring far great technique and team unity to the compulsory set-pattern dances than do their famously-established counterparts on ice.

I'll let this issue alone, other than to note that Sonja Heine helped turn ice skating into an Olympic staple and entertainment industry. The rest is a colorful and skillfully exploited history that keeps on giving..

For the schooled skater on any surface who values baselines and lobes, three turns and partner alignment, there is -- or was -- nothing so technically satisfying to watch as a crack American roller dance team, before American rollers began mimicking the comparatively wild and free ice "dancing" style. For those of you in the dark, imagine the more conservative champion ballrooms dancers you see today on PBS, only performing with the same flawless execution on roller skates.

Of course, the public would likely find them boring, as they tend to the ice teams in compulsories. In the beginning, the icers in tandem placed rigorous if clumsy emphasis on edges, edges, edges, at the expense of partner unity and flow. Remember the school figures? From those, emerged teams "dancing." At their worst (even in the Ice Follies), partners cut deep edges while holding onto each other as music played.

The American roller dancers during the forties and fifties broke free of edge-centric styles and achieved matchless levels of breathless perfection in symmetry, upright posture, partner unison, smooth creamy movement of skates. Roller dance champion Bob Labriola and his partners, then those teams he taught, epitomized an idyllic form of roller dance that has virtually vanished as the roller crowd, pathetically bent on doing it the ice way, believing that is the only road to Olympic glory, laboriously and slavishly imitates ice dance styles -- to a point of grotesque exaggeration and overkill.

I'm waiting for the free dance, in which icers excel, for here the partners can widen and liberate the space between themselves that, on blades, never came natural but always looked forced. At this break-away point, dancing on ice comes very close to pairs skating, minus the lifts. The French team years ago were a revelation in creative artistry.

A sheet of ice invites the body to soar.

The Morning Midway: Job Postings, Post Rantings

Twitters and tweets, have I. Let me see what tonight the ice my bring, which may bump this fun thing a day down the road ... The Vancouver bladsters due in fifteen minutes, but I'm NOT sitting up all night through a thousand commercials to see whether it's Japan, Russia, or the U.S. (the latter looks lithely, statuesquely spectacular -- if he delivers, I'd say Him).

No, this is not the Showbiz David Talent Agency, but here I go none the less ...

E-mails I now and then receive. Got one from a cool sounding dude, into magic and other things -- stress "other." Asking me for advice: how to get a circus job. Magic, etc. I was about to post his link, which suddenly vanished, causing me to dig deeper for info on the guy. Kinky. S&M. Bloody. Makes that Cirque sex thing in Vegas look like a Lawrence Welk Christmas show. Today's subversive kids may yet revive Circus Maximus. Mother Theressa I am not, but neither do I dig the Tarantino tent.

Let's retreat to normal everyday chaos: Onto Showbiz David's Shock Therapy Division: My pointed posting about Circus World Museum's travails and troubles brought out the edge in otherwise gingerly Doc Bob Dewel, protectorate general of all things Baraboobian (Sorry, doc, I just couldn't resist quoting John Ringling's snide contortion of your town's name). Those CWM remarks of mine, diagnosed by Baraboo's cheerleader-in-chief, amounted to a "broadside." Something "a little more constructive and less denigrating would have been welcomed."

Boy, am I glad I'm not up for a root canal from dapper Doc Bob.

'Twas a bleak set of hard cold facts only recently discovered by yours truly that drove my terse thesis: not even 10 paying customers a day during the off seasons; Only six or seven hundred visitors a day during the summer months. A museum that lost its accreditation. Exhibits needing text revisions. I could go on.

Something about Bob's ruffled persona brings a laugh to my mug. Blame it on his good discrete humor: "Now really on my 91st year, and hating it."

Heck, how many bridges have I broken? If I attempt another circus book, will any museum out there lend-sell me photos? (Note to myself: leave the outfit in Peru and that library in San Antonia ALONE -- end of note to myself)

It's nearly 10 PM here, and NBC has still not brought out men's figures. Jay Leno may appear before they do. I'm not waiting. Need my rest for another brooding early morning walk through the misty moors of Oakland's Rose Garden. Thick delicious fog! So atmospheric, and I get to wear my winter cap and gloves.

Showbiz David Tanbark Therapy/No-Blood Talent Agency is now closed -- under Doctor's orders.

Cole Bros. Circus Owner John Pugh, Just Inducted into Circus Ring of Fame, Bound for Haiti with Big Top Shelter for Quake Victims ...

He just might be the nicest guy under the big top. A native of England, he started out as a movie stuntman and performer, along the way executing the more difficult moves as a double for Richard Burton in Cleopatra, and watching the Burton-Taylor romance bloom before his eyes. He joined Clyde Beatty Circus in 1961 and has been with the show ever since.

First performing as an acrobat, following a career-ending injury, Pugh was offered the assistant manager position. From there on up he advanced to the top of the big top.

"For job preservation, I went on to be the owner," Pugh with a laugh told Pat Hatfield of the DeLand, Florida West Volusia Beacon.

Johnny Pugh is not resting on yesterday's spangled memories, and shows no signs of slowing down. "It's a seven-day-a-week job. I enjoy it. It's a great life."

He has also served as a judge for the world's most prestigious international circus competition -- the annual Monte Carlo Circus Festival in Monaco.

Soon, Pugh will be giving something back to the world when he boards an airplane bound for Haiti with a lot more than the acceptable carry-on-bag. He'll have with him a complete three-ring size circus big top, taking it there in response to a Haitian government request. Pugh estimates, given the local help he plans to personally supervise, that it may take a day or so to set the canvas up for much-needed temporary shelter.

The name JOHN PUGH in the Sarasota Circus Ring of Fame should add luster to an institution that in recent years has honored some not-so-distinguished figures. Pugh said the induction was emotional for him. His wife, Brigitte, introduced him at the ceremony.

And the show goes on. Cole Bros. Circus, marking its 126th year in business, opens its 2010 season in DeLand on March 20.

Congratulations, John! Well deserved!

The Morning Midway: Atlanta's Got Three Circuses in Town, Take Your Pick

Traditional to soul, Atlanta is the place if you're in the mood for some late winter sawdust. Three shows are in town at the same time!

Big Apple Circus, Feb. 15 through Feb. 28, $15-$42.

Ringling-Barnum Zing Zang Zoom, Feb. 12 through Feb. 21, $14-$130.

UniverSoul, Feb. 17 through March 7, $15-$25.

Who said big tops were dead?

Sunday Sendoffs: Monte Carlo, Have I Got the Judges for You ... Detroit Shrine Under Canvas; Kelly-Miller in Texas Rain ...

America Judges the World: Who better to adjudicate the Monte Carlo Circus Festival than those producers who for years made American shows hot hot hot by importing great ring stars from across the great blue ocean? Remember John Ringling North, Europe? Before him, John Ringling? Somebody hitting my midway under Anonymous came up with this outrageously brilliant idea, and I am elated to front post it. It should impress Monte Carlo because it draws on circus owners, and circus owners are what they are obviously the most comfortable with. Stresses Anonymous, "you KNOW there won't be any acts from here competing and none of the world class acts perform here anymore, so our producers would be more than impartial as judges." I don't agree that "world class acts" skip us, but still I love your overall reasoning ...

My Dear Princess Stephanie: Here’s your panel of five, personally selected by Showbiz David putting all bias aside to spread the credibility around fairly: Paul Binder, Kenneth Feld, Struppi Hanneford, John Ringling North II (he’s got two imports to his young legacy); and Johnny Pugh (he’s already been there). ... And how about, good Princess and friend of the circus, giving your prestigious event the clean transparency of Olympic Judging? Above each of my judicial appointments on your behalf, display their marks on a prominent digital score board, so that after each act appears, each judge’s scores are posted for all to see. You see, Princess Stephanie, we may not know how to create top acts in this country, but we have a history (if currently trumped by a certain circus north of our border) for casting the talents Europe fosters into some of the most excitingly directed show. Is it a "go," Monte Carlo? ...

Back in operation, most popular circus blog? That would be Kelly-Miller Circus clowns Stephen Copeland and Ryan Combs (the latter, just married). The Stephen in this partnership has a natural bent for telling it like it is, assuming that is what he really does, and I have no reason to doubt him. So, he takes us right down into the dirt with the rest of the company. Still a Ringling North-ophile, I can't help myself again. I've just rejoined the blog, after last season giving up midway cause of all the bum houses or dead audiences dissed. But, heck, it's spring! And spring in Texas is, so far -- spring in Texas: Three slated rehearsal days shot down to mud and hell; gosh, at times like this, global warming, please! Day before opening, they rehearsed from 8AM to midnight, blogs Copeland ... Okay, I'm on their lot again, until I can't take any more complaints about stupid audiences or malfunctioning clown gags. Check back with me in May ...

Big Top Bits down the Covington Chute: A new Blacktop Circus hitting Big Apple cement come March said to be hip hop oriented, featuring among others the King Charles Troupe. Well, they have a name if nothing else, thanks to Irvin Feld's marketing zeal ... Baby Barack, sadly ominous to report, down with Herpes, and experts say that 85% of elephants who contract this disease end up in the hereafter. Here's hoping that Ringling's new in-vitro pachyderm can trump the gloomy odds... Detroit Shriners -- remember, 'twas they who launched what once upon a season was a significant producer of American circus shows —- recently kicked off the fairgrounds. Now saved and slated to go under canvas on a lot next to the something called the Hazel Parkway. Welcome to the mud, Shrine clowns ...

And that’s a rainy wrap. (P.S., Anonymous: Your American Judges idea, brilliant brilliant brilliant!)

The Morning Midway: Cirque Turkey Headed for NY Chopping Block? Critix Pens Loaded with Red Ink ...

Already, NY press talking down Cirque Du Soleil's troubled Banana Shpeel, the recipient of wretched notices in its Chicago shake-down mode, still set for NY opening on February 25 at the Beacon Theatre, where a bloody reception may ensue. New York Post writer Michael Riedel nearly salivating over reports of a colossal catastrophe, noting that Madison Square Garden, having "shoveled $10 million into this fiasco, is furious."

His report dances on the expected grave of a deliciously awful, or awfully delicious flop. You can see the red ink already gushing out of his pen, quoting "several people" working on the project as calling it a "train wreck," "a nightmare" and, if that doesn't suit your sadistic fantasies, "one of the worst shows you've ever seen."

Hmmm, might that become a marketable hook?

A couple of "scary clowns," first let go, were rehired by Guy Laliberte, feeling they give the show "edge." Riedel had found them too much like Wayne Gacy, the Chicago serial killer. Overactive critics -- beware.

What a spectacular gamble King Laliberte is taking; does he really want the bad press this one seems destined to generate? In the BIG APPLE, of all places? On the other hand, this banana may be frenetically weird enough to connect with audiences hungry for not the same old same old. Sometimes new bad can do the trick.

"They are proceeding without a script or any idea of what they need to do in order to fix the show."

How eccentrically creative. And how I'd love to be there on opening night. Whatever hits the boards, there should be plenty of mouth-dropping drama, intended or not, at or around the Beacon.