After more than a century, Ringling Bros. circus folds up its tents
MICHELLE R. SMITH
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — An elephant stretches its trunk through a window to soothe a sick child. A woman gives birth and three months later is back on the high wire.
These stories could come only from circus performers — especially the circus immortalized as “The Greatest Show on Earth” — the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which is hanging up its hat for the last time this weekend.
While the show goes on in other circuses around the world, Ringling is special. The size, the spectacle and the history — stretching back to P.T. Barnum and his travelling museum in the 1800s — set it apart.
One of Ringling ’s two travelling circuses is scheduled to perform its final show Sunday in New York. The other closed this month, in Providence, R.I., and with it, the end to a way of life few others have experienced.
Ringling is the last circus anywhere to travel by train, and while living on a train can be tough, the accommodations are considered a benefit that other circuses don’t offer. Perks include the “Pie Car,” the long train’s dining operation, as well as a circus nursery and school for the many children whose parents make the circus what it is.
Some observations from the home these performers leave behind:
One of Sandor Eke’s earliest memories is of an elephant comforting him, stretching its trunk through his trailer window, while he lay recovering from illness.
His Hungarian parents were performing at a circus in Sweden and Eke was just a toddler. A few years later, he’d be a circus performer himself, and aspiring to come to the U.S. to join Ringling.
He got his wish 20 years ago. Now, at 41, he’s the Boss Clown, leader of the clowns on the unit. He’s also dad to two-year-old Michael, enjoying the waning days here together.
“You have your own zoo. You can pet an elephant; you can play with the baby tigers,” Eke says. “You have your own clowns. Everybody loves you. A circus is a very big family.”
He wonders change.
“My normal life is this. My normal life is going on the train, going every week to a different city,” Eke says. “It’s crazy how much I love circus.”
Knowing it’s coming to an end has been difficult for his fellow performers and crew, and Eke has been trying to make his cir- cus family laugh.
“I don’t stop until they smile,” he says. “And I do everything. I don’t care if I have to dive into a trash can. That’s how I want to be remembered. And that’s how I want to remember myself. I’m going to go and cry. But I’m going to be happy.”
Ivan Vargas likes to say his parents fell in love with the air.
He is sixth-generation circus. His mother performed on the high wire when they met, his father on the trapeze.
Vargas was born between two Ringling shows in 1990. His father managed to perform in the early show, then made it across the street to the hospital — in costume — for his son’s birth.
Vargas is part of Clown Alley. It’s not just a place: It’s the private area backstage where clowns get ready to perform. But it’s also how the clowns refer to themselves, a mini-fraternity within the circus, and a microcosm of it.
Being a circus performer takes commitment, discipline and athleticism, qualities Anna Lebedeva exhibits when she balances on the high wire with her husband, Mustafa Danguir.
She executes her tricks so effortlessly, it’s hard to believe she had a baby three months ago.
It was important to her to perform in Ringling’s last shows, she says, and she pushed herself to get back in condition after their son, Amir, was born.
They married last year, metres up on the high wire.
“We are artists,” Danguir says. “We are survivors.”