Cobbler and Contraptions
by Elizabeth Cadd
High in the air, a lithe, scantily clad woman spins and winds herself dangerously fast in a rope suspended from the rafters twenty feet above her. She is sneering and laughing at the band of musicians, who are accompanying her with a morbid tune from their tiny stage below. She twists herself into knots, bending backward until she is pointing her impossibly small feet at her long, raven hair. The drummer grows frantic as a corset-clad singer standing in front of him wails about falling in love with the devil, the trombone player swings his blue dreadlocks in rhythm and as the music comes to a climax, the woman lets go. She falls with a snap the twenty feet to the ground, catching herself with her thighs at the very last moment. I am sitting five feet from the end of the rope and can see the sweat glistening on her brow as she slowly stands and takes her bow to wild applause. This is when I decide: Circus Contraption is the best circus I have ever seen. There are no performing animals, no sense of arrogance or over-priced memorabilia, just a small troupe of artists from Seattle and their raunchy, morbid, and unique sideshow act.
They call themselves a Burlesque Circus, but the folks who make up Circus Contraption are so much more than that. Ten of the fifteen are acrobats or aerialists, some are clowns, some are dancers, and almost all of them play an instrument in the Circus Contraption band. Nor is this any ordinary band. At various points in the show everyone contributes to one of the myriad instruments: accordion, banjo, guitar, bass, clarinet, violin, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, tuba, theremin, glockenspiel, washboard, drums, rusty pipes and more. Dancers are vocalists, the pianist helps with set changes and Bunny LaMont, the traveling clown, is behind the drum kit for most of the first act. The gypsy carnival music that permeates each act is amazingly different and refreshing, making me want to dance and giving me goosebumps at the same time. The band's off-kilter lyrics accompanied by dissonant and haunting melodies set the mood of a very creepy, fascinatingly morbid sideshow. "I want to go home to mother" is one of the lyrics "sung" by three puppet embryos encased in their jar. With numbers like this, it's obvious this circus is bawdy, naughty and definitely for adults.
The sense of family from these people is amazing, and not just between themselves. They are diverse and funny and make the audience feel completely at home. In fact, as I looked around at the crowd that had assembled in the tiny performance area of Cell Space in San Francisco, I got the distinct impression that most of the ticket-holders were the "Black Sheep" of their families. Once the show started, I realized that the piercings and tattoos so prevalent in the audience were also mirrored in the actors and band-members as well, making a show that would seem bizarre to an outsider take on an air of togetherness. The counter culture youth of my generation has shunned media "norms" and brought about a re-emergence of pin-up girl popularity. The realistic body types that Betty Grable and Bettie Page epitomized in the 1930's and 40's are being enthusiastically embraced. The act of casting off societal restraints is what spawns Circus Contraption's odd ball, rated-R performances and also what draws in audiences and sells out the tickets to their shows. Their merchandise is fairly priced, the actors and performers do their own marketing and artistic direction, and they serve homemade cobbler instead of greasy popcorn.
Being at Circus Contraption sank me into a reverie of my first time at the circus when I was twelve years old. The entire atmosphere enthralled me: The music, the popcorn, the lights, and the beautiful dancers and contortionists dressed in glittering costumes. Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the show because of the horrifying way the animals were being yanked around by handlers with little concern for their freedom. I loved everything else, but I'd read such horrible press about the way the elephants were treated, and I saw how the trainers mercilessly whipped the horses to get them to run their endless circles around the rings. As an animal lover, I couldn't enjoy what I was seeing. There is no amount of sequins in this world that can overshadow an abused animal. When we left the big top, I was conflicted: I didn't want to watch the lions captive in tiny cages or witness such cruelty against horses and bears, but I loved the trapeze artists and ached to be a fire-eating ballerina. At Circus Contraption, that conflict was solved: The women are talented and beautiful, and there are absolutely no animals in the show at all, unless you count the dancing fetus puppets.
It was right between the first death-defying rope twirler and the moment I noticed the Halloween-themed nail polish on the tuba player's fingernails that I realized this was the most fun I had ever had at a circus. I wasn't worried about animal safety, I wasn't being cheated out of money for cheap trinkets or over-priced food; I was fed on home-cooked cobbler, drooling over beautiful girls and laughing wildly with the hilarious clowns. I was surrounded by happily cheering peers, and we had all paid a very modest sum to view talented people present a tastefully sexy and scintillating show. I may go back to an animal-free circus, but I don't believe that any circus can be better than the show that Circus Contraption lovingly and happily stages.