It's true: The Ringling Brothers Circus is shutting down…and I believe I've read that the Big Apple Circus and a few others have folded their tents. I'm sure there are a few others trampling around the country still but traditional circuses are becoming like classic burlesque or medicine shows or other forms that exist as nostalgia or historical pieces, not current entertainments.
I'm sure we can all name many reasons, one being how there's so much high-tech amusement about that the low-tech stuff seems real pedestrian. Another (of course) is that we no longer find trained animals as wonderful as audiences once did. And I'm told that location has something to do with it. There are no longer as many large, undeveloped properties in our cities where a circus could set up for two weeks before moving on to the next town. Cirque du Soleil has to pay a lot for those spots which is one of the reasons their shows are pricey. They're usually terrific but they're pricey.
Also: Classic clown makeup was invented to be seen from a great distance in the cheap seats. I think a lot of people who see it close-up on TV or in movies come to the attitude that most of it is pretty creepy.
And I'll toss one more possible reason into the mix and I'm not sure how much of a factor this might be. Over the years, I've met maybe two dozen performers who worked in actual, for-real, non-Cirque circuses. Maybe it's just the ones I've met but all of them really, really hated the circus. Didn't like the lifestyle, didn't like the pay, didn't like the living conditions, didn't like how hard they worked…
Some said they'd loved it at first because it was new and exciting and in some cases, fulfilling of a dream to join the circus. As time goes on though, a lot of dreams settle down into jobs and often not particularly good ones. A juggler I met once told me that it was fine when he was twenty but later, when he got to thinking he'd like to marry and raise a family, it didn't seem to be the place to do that.
Alas, if the thing you do best is to walk a tightrope or be shot out of a cannon, there aren't a lot of other places you can do those things. Offhand, the only one that comes to mind would be to become a Donald Trump spokesperson. Which can make performers resent their situation more. Circuses are supposed to be happy places and I wonder if unhappy employees take the shine off that.
I haven't been to a circus in a long time…like around the time I was only 1.5 times the height of The World's Smallest Man. I recall liking the music and excitement and some of the acrobats but not most of the animal acts or freakish elements. The clowns struck me as silly, not funny, and the whole place had a really unpleasant odor. Also, I recall an awful lot of manipulation to get us to applaud more and applaud louder…and I kept thinking, "Maybe if you put on a better show, we would."
Since I wasn't going to them anyway, I don't see this as a personal loss. I just hate to think of all those people being put out of work…a tiny, rainbow-painted car pulling up outside the Unemployment Office and a dozen clowns getting out to go in and file for benefits…