Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to The Big Apple Circus dress rehearsal, thanks to Michele Henderson.
The Big Apple Circus tends to work it’s way around, and I was pretty disappointed when they stopped going to the Reston Town Center because a huge building was put on the lot they used. That disappointment completely vanished when the new home for this area’s visits was in front of Dulles Town Center, minutes away from my back yard.
The acts this year didn’t seem to deal with death defying feats of dropping from the roof, nor did they derive from artsy-fartsy origins. Instead they came from raw skill. That meant that a lot more things could go wrong, and wrong they did.
Jugglers dropped things — but it was still so amazing you just didn’t care. One guy worked his way up a ladder while twirling it, however he fell on three different attempts and threw in the towel. On one occasion he fell, carried the ladder, and swooped it over the audience. The problem there was that I was holding a standing baby, and he was coming right at her head level — he didn’t see her until the last moment.
Luckily, I managed to lower the baby, and he stopped his swinging arc mid stream right as he got over my wife’s head. The baby was a near miss. My bet is that part will be cut from the act, or at least he’ll be looking before he swings in the future.
Finally, in the “did I lose my job” department, when one of the trapeze artists dismounted into the net, the net collapsed at one corner, and he grazed the ground. It was obvious the safety manager in the corner was really pissed, and he aborted the rest of the act, sending people down on ladders. This meant the troop had actually been working without a net and didn’t know it. Someone was going to get a reaming when the audience left.
All in all, we had a really good time — we sat up front, and Mike got to interact with “Grandma” (a clown). Grandma had been splashed in the face a few times, and after being unable to seek revenge on another clown, he enlisted Mike’s help. Mike threw the water at Grandma instead.
It’s very interesting to observe the mechanics behind the art. We were so close, and there were so few people in the tent, that it was possible to hear the instructions as they conversed. You’d think the clown would be using a silly voice or miming action. Nope. Just a regular calm voice, but where you’d expect dialog, instructions were being passed instead.
Grandma walked toward our row, as he homed in on Mike, he said “you, please stand up” – Mike did. And as he was acting silly, in the calmest voice you heard “I’m going to hand you a glass of water, then point at him, when I do, you throw just the water at me.” Mike followed instructions exactly on cue as instructed, and the rest of the tent out of earshot burst into laughter.
When the clown returned with a hose to exact revenge, Mike did an improv and grabbed the nearest daughter to use as a human shield. The crowd loved it, the clowns laughed, and the daughter crossed her arms — she didn’t realize it was all an act. A few cheers of “good job!” to her ear, and she caught on and went back to sucking in the circus experience.