You Oughta Be in Pickles : The Circus Goes to the Movies, Older Audiences Get Reeled In
Somewhere in circus law it must be writ that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth a “ta-dah!”
You’ve seen it. As soon as the acrobat finishes a stunt or a trainer gets her poodles to tango--ta-dah!--the arms fly up, the toothy grin flashes and the audience has been alerted that another Amazing Feat has been performed.
The members of the New Pickle Circus don’t put a lot of stock in ta-dahs. Instead of the trick, ta-dah, trick, ta-dah pacing of most American circuses, the Pickles prefer a smoother approach that owes more to the theater than the center ring.
The company’s current show, “Jump Cuts! The Circus Goes to the Movies” is a case in point. Featuring eight multifaceted performers, “Jump Cuts!” is the story of two lost tourists who, locked inside the Mon-U-Mental (M.U.M.) studios after-hours, are swept through scenes ranging from black-and-white Western shoot-em-ups to spoofs of film noir to splashy musicals.
These adventures are all conjured up by the studio’s resident ghost and brought to life by circus acts, comedy, outlandish costumes and live jazz. The two-hour show will be presented Friday night at Fullerton’s Plummer Auditorium as part of Cal State Fullerton’s PAIR Celebrity Series. The Bay Area-based troupe also performs a one-hour version of the show this morning at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.
Children are always captivated by the show’s excitement and eye-catching visuals, said company member Aidan O’Shea, but he says “Jump Cuts!” also has been successful at reaching the elusive teenage and preteen crowd that might be turned off by a traditional circus.
“Teenagers, a lot of time, have a pretty blase reaction to the idea of a circus,” said O’Shea, 20, who, along with fellow company member Aloysia Gavre-Wareham, was handpicked for the troupe by artistic director Tandy Beal while still in high school in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.
“But our show has a whole host of jokes and scenes that really fly over kids’ heads and are directed to a more sophisticated audience,” O’Shea said.
“For example, there’s this bit when Razz [the male lead] is running around in this huge strapless dress and Pino [the female lead] is in this little tuxedo trying to lure him. It’s humor that the little kids aren’t really understanding, but it gets the parents and the older kids just rolling.”
The Pickle Family Circus was founded in 1974 with the intent of creating a broad-based form of theater encompassing music, dance, drama and circus skills. The original troupe produced such notable comic performers as Bill Irwin and Geoff Hoyle.
But in early 1993, the laughter was nearly silenced when the company, so plagued by financial woes that its equipment truck was repossessed and the artists were bunking four to a hotel room to cut costs, filed for bankruptcy.
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Enter Beal, a noted dancer-choreographer who earlier had created a show for the Pickles. She stepped in and with her nonprofit organization, the Friends of Olympia Station, took over the circus assets and revived the company.
Beal, who did the choreography for the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas,’ ” now serves as artistic director of the Pickles while continuing to run her own modern-dance troupe, Tandy Beal & Company.
The Pickles receive their acrobatic training under Lu Yi, former head of the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe and since 1990 a teacher at San Francisco’s School of Circus Arts.
Beal’s expertise in dance and Lu Yi’s mastery of Chinese acrobatics give the show a different tone than the typical American circus, O’Shea said.
“We have a lot of the clowning and silly stuff, but a lot of the acts are very graceful and elegant, too,” explained O’Shea, whose work in the show includes what he calls a “balancing, contortion-esque dance and acrobatic routine” he developed with Gavre-Wareham.
In fact, said tour and stage manager Hillary Fox, the Pickles often are compared to Canada’s Cirque du Soleil.
“I’ve seen the Cirque three times, and I do think we have things in common,” said Fox. “We both have the pacing, and we’re both a real production instead of a spectacle.
“But I think the Pickles are more theatrical in that we have a real story line . . . with transitions in and out of each act,” she said. “There’s always dance and movement and characters interacting . . . always something exciting to look at.”
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* What: The New Pickle Circus in “Jump Cuts! The Circus Goes to the Movies”
* When: Today at Orange Coast College, 9:30 and 11:30 a.m.; Friday at Plummer Auditorium, 8 p.m.
* Where: Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa; Plummer Auditorium, 201 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton.
* Whereabouts: Orange Coast College--From the San Diego (405) Freeway, exit at Fairview Road and drive west. Turn right onto the campus at Arlington Drive; Plummer Auditorium--From the Orange (57) Freeway, exit at Chapman Avenue in Fullerton and drive west. The theater is at the corner of Chapman and Lemon Street.
* Wherewithal: $5-$7 (OCC); $12.50-$17.50 (Plummer).
* Where to call: (714) 432-5880 (OCC); (714) 773-3371 (Plummer).