Our Newest Endangered Species?

What used to be fun for ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages has become a political target, it seems.

The internationally acclaimed Cirque du Soleil almost had its run cut short at the Orange County Fairgrounds when neighbors in Costa Mesa complained about noise. And animal-rights activists have gone to various city councils trying to bar Circus Vargas from performing in Orange County, saying the show is cruel to animals.

Is the greatest show on Earth not so great after all?

“I think the death bell for the circus has been rung a couple of times, but it has always been able to come back,” said Deborah Walk, curator of the Circus Museum at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla.

It’s a form of entertainment that predates ancient Rome and has appeared in the United States since 1793, she said. Its lexicon has even seeped into everyday language: jumbo, get on the bandwagon, throw your hat into the ring, rain or shine, hold your horses.

“It has a rich tradition and it has changed over the years,” Walk said. “It still has a popularity, but it’s in competition with a lot of other events.

“The circus almost appears to be something from a bygone era,” she said. When the caravan arrived in small-town America, she said, “everything stopped and you went to the circus.”

Even seemingly modern pressures such as animal-rights concerns aren’t new, Walk said. John Ringling pulled exotic animals from his circus in the 1930s.

“But they came back, because animals are part of the circus,” she said.

Those animal acts are exactly what makes circuses so objectionable, said Jane Garrison of Orange County People For Animals, in Irvine.

“The only circus that’s not cruel to animals is a circus that doesn’t have animals,” she said. “If someone was doing this to a dog, they would be arrested.”

She contends that circus animals are chained and abused, not trained with positive reinforcement as the shows claim. The practice is not only cruel, but dangerous when animals rebel, she said, pointing to the death of a tiger trainer at a circus near Pittsburgh last week. One of the man’s big cats attacked and killed him, then dragged his body around the pen before hundreds of horrified children and adults.

“People are starting to realize it’s not worth it,” Garrison said. “It’s not worth it for their own safety, and it’s not worth it for what the animals go through.”

But Circus Vargas got a clean bill of health from Orange County Animal Control before the show opened in Garden Grove two weeks ago. Inspectors checked to see that the animals were healthy and had space, food, water and shelter, said animal control director Judy Maitlen.

Before the performances, protesters went to the City Council asking that Circus Vargas’ permit be denied. Instead, the council asked for the animal control investigation, Garden Grove City Manager George Tindall said.

“They felt a circus is an American tradition, and they wanted to issue the permit if possible,” he said. “We imposed some pretty stringent conditions on them that they met.”

The controversy over Cirque du Soleil’s visit had nothing to do with animals--the European-style show has only human performers--but with noise. The problematic world music that accompanies the show is loud and does have a heavy beat, Walk said. But she had never before heard of anyone complaining.

Objections decreased after show technicians fiddled with the sound system to keep some noise from leaving the big top. But the circus won’t go back to the fairgrounds when it next returns to Orange County in 2000.

“Any music, no matter how well composed or performed, just gets old after 22 hours a week,” said one fairground neighbor, Don McGee.

Circus Vargas, with its big tent and animals, just finished a weekend run in San Juan Capistrano, and is scheduled to appear in Huntington Beach in July. That is, if it gets past a permit hearing Wednesday that’s sure to include animal-rights picketers.

“This is one of the last true forms of family entertainment,” said Rolanda Kaiser, director of marketing for Circus Vargas. “We’re bringing the public what we found they wanted to see. We’re kind of in the middle--you can’t make everybody happy.”