Past Tents

Last week, just as sure as daffodils, the circus opened in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. It was Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey's 92nd spring. The ringmaster's "Children of all ages . . ." invocation was the same, but it was obvious that things had changed.

Gone is the sawdust; rubber matting is much easier to put down and neater to take up in the auditoriums where the tentless circus now plays. The freaks are still there in the sideshow, but it is considered discriminatory to call them by that name any longer, and the placards that identify them are like something out of a natural history museum. Gone is the little house that caught on fire; gone are the Living Statues; gone is the calliope; gone is Emmett Kelly, Gargantua, and Jo Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy. But gone, most of all, is the innocent wonderment of the pretelevision era--the squeals of delicious terror, the yelps of helpless laughter--that used to rock the Big Top before Howdy-Doody came on the scene.

But the circus is still a brave show.

King Everest slides down a metal slope on skis--on his hands. Madame Gena puts a ring full of camels through high-stepping Bactrian high jinks. Unus performs the impossible on one finger atop a light globe. Harold Alzana teeters through several near falls on his 40-ft. high wire. And the Zacchinis, their cannon now billed as "atomic," are launched in a flash of gun powder into a safety net and "recovered in time for the next countdown." Newest star is blonde Evelyn Currie, 20, who is appearing with Ringling Bros.

for the first time this season with her "mixed wild animals" -- a cage full of lions and tigers whom she wrestles, makes jump through flaming hoops, teases, and rides bareback around the cage. Three years ago Evelyn was mauled by an irate lion when she was appearing at a Shriners' circus in Chattanooga. Many circus people wondered if she could ever do the act again. Last week, on opening night, she had been in the cage only three minutes before a lion took a swipe at her. Evelyn, armed only with the traditional chair, got him under control and finished the act.

Only when she went back to her dressing room beneath the arena did she discover that she was bleeding. This did not faze the girl who has spent most of her post-pubescent years in the lions' cage. Said she: "God, those cats are wonderful. They were so good to me tonight."

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