Small Victories

As we made our way through yet another miserable build up, I looked over to the stage only to have my heart sink. Just looking at it I could see that it sloped dramatically downward toward the audience. Looking more closely I saw that before the slope really got going, there was first a small hill to get over. The stage as a whole was nothing short of wavy. I could feel the tears welling up inside. Another town, another fight against the floor. And this one looked to be a doozy.

When the build up was finally done I went to speak with one of the folks in charge. Not to complain about the floor, I know the guys who build it up are doing their best. It's not like I didn't notice the mud and the rain and the lumpy field we had to work with. What was really bothering me is that I felt dishonest. I was hired to do a job and so far, I've only been able to deliver a few times. And the more I struggle, the more I wonder if it's not so much the floor that is bad, but me. Needless to say, the idea of spending the next seven months like this makes me want to run screaming for the hills.

I was assured that they can see it's the floor that's the problem and that they too feel badly about the conditions. They also added that it's okay because I still give a a good performance, even if it's not at the level I would like it to be, and also, the public always reacts well, so they're happy.

Toward the end of this conversation, the director of the circus joined us and echoed those sentiments. What I didn't know is that after I left, he went to look at the floor. In a nutshell, he looked at it, shook his head, stated that it wasn't possible that the floor was in that state, and had the workers reinstall it.

On the one hand, I was very happy about this. On the other, I felt kind of bad. The workers have the longest days imaginable, and I'm sure that putting the floor up a second time was not the most welcomed assignment of the day. It was surely not my intention to have them do so.

And was it really worth it? I don't know. I tried the floor and I dare say it may even be worse than in Lenzburg. I had to cut at least three lines from my act and replace them with the simplest moves possible. Falling was embarrassing. But so is performing an act that I could have done in my first year of circus school...