The Red Show, now in rehearsal, will have three different triangles positioned on the floor and since the performance now faces the round end, there will be a "down stage triangle", a "mid stage triangle" and an "upstage triangle". |
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
From a secret source!
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12 comments:
That Circus has lost something all right, and it ain't colors!!!!
For Christsake...wasn't it proven last year on the Blue Show that the press and the public don't like the damn movie screen. Then, why, tell me why, do they repeat a loser? Ringling might be putting together the 137th edition but it doesn't mean they are getting smarter.
Sounds like they have lost their minds. Someone needs to remind them what Circus means.
Doesn't Circus have something to do with rings? So this will be a Tricus? See it's not a circus any more. Now they are admitting it!
This is the worst idea since last year and THAT was the worst idea since New Coke.
Maybe worse.
My opinion for what it's worth is simply that Ringling has no one associated with it that has circus on the brain as we do. Second, they ( management, not performers )are all paid professionals to do a job, not right or wrong, just do it. Third, the cash cow is still providing a monetary flow. Until the time comes that Ringling discovers their show is holding the bag and the other shows are thriving, they have no reason to change anything. I've said it before and I will again, there are approximately 20,000 Circus Fans, Historians, Model Builders and ex-performers in America. That would fill a good arena for one show. We aren't the ones they are trying to please. Until they are knee deep in bad press and the crowds stay home, they'll continue to bend, shape, mold, fold, spindle, and mutilate their circus into anything they want to call it.
So sad, but so true!
Bob
Ode to Barney; The big screen TV is so you can see what the small acts in those big empty buildings are doing. A recent conversation with a friend who saw the show in Chicago just now,said he did not think it was such a bad show, however he said he thought the reason the show got such bad press all year is when people hear the name Ringling bros & Barnum & Baily, they're expecting to see three rings of productions and glamourous spectacles. Uh Duh ! He also thought if they gave it some other name,the public might not be so disappointed? You don't suppose Feld is using the Ringling title as a draw?
From Eric:
If the Felds ever decide to sell the GSOE, I'm sure that there will be an iron-clad clause in the sales contract that forbids the new owners from ever issuing press releases to the effect that they "saved" the Ringling Circus after it had become a pale shadow of its former greatness.
I think a lot of people miss the point.
It isn't so much the shape of the performing area as much as what you put in it.
In either a triangle or a rectangle. Gunther Gebel Williams would still have a sensational animal act and even in a perfect circular ring, Shemsheeva's house cats would still be an afterthought novelty number.
In a number of his Biographical and auto-biogrphical sketches Irvin Feld said he started his showbusiness career peddling Snake Oil at fairs, etc. And the Felds seem to be continuing on as they have been peddling Snake Oil ever since.
As all of us notice, any discussion of circus gets around to the great owners and managers, decades, even centuries after their impact. With the gift of showmanship denied Kenny and Nicole Feld, it takes little imagination to realize what future historians will be saying about their shameful, destructive tenure.
I hold grudges. I’m still miffed that the Bros bought the Barnum title from the Bailey estate, still livid at the closure of the Corporation shows twenty-some years before I was born. In fairness to RBBB however, I would venture that neither Mr Feld nor Ms Feld intentionally do anything detrimental to the circus or to the legacy of the shows. Things happen. I’m sure that every decision has somehow seemed like a good decision at the time.
I’ll go a tiny step further, I think that as much as we criticize Kenneth Feld, he deserves some credit too. I may personally dislike cute little films featuring talking elephants discussing the training of their human handlers, but the Feld organization has put more resources into countering anti-circus activism than all other circuses combined. Maybe they could have/should have done it differently, but at least they’ve been public about it
It’s easy to say, “Well they have deep pockets.” And it’s true.
It’s also true that Feld recognized early on that you couldn’t keep quiet about activists, or hide and hope that they’d go away, or throw a few punches and pray that nobody has a video camera.
It’s quite possible that future circus historians will look back at the RBBB shows of the last ten years and decide that in all respects they could have been better, grander, more circus-like. Those same historians may look at this era and conclude that only a few Shrine dates held up every tradition of the traditional circus – while a few other shows tried with some success to create new traditions. If traditional circus does survive, particularly if it survives the perils of over-zealous, well meaning regulation, for that at least we’ll all owe Kenneth Feld a thank you.
Now I’ll shut up and stop sounding stupid.
Ben Trumble
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