Posted 4/12/2007 10:31:41 PM by Webmaster
Announcement from ShowbizDavid viewed 814 times
Thursday, April 12, 2007 - California
David Lewis Hammarstrom is back on the midway with a new book due later this year from McFarland to prove it, Fall of the Big Top: The Vanishing American Circus
He surprised and enthralled the circus world with his unprecedented look at the darker side in Behind the Big Top. He turned out the first (and still only) definitive history in English of the Soviet Circus empire with his ground breaking Circus Rings Around Russia. And, for an encore, he penned the highly acclaimed biography of John Ringling North, Big Top Boss. Now after a tour way from the big tops covering the Great White Way (Broadway Musicals: A hundred Year History and Flower Drum Songs; The Story of Two Musicals;), showbiz journalists and critic David Lewis Hammarstrom is back on the midway with the same candor, passion and humor, and he has a new book due later this year from McFarland to prove it, Fall of the Big Top: The Vanishing American Circus. It promises to explore the demise of a uniquely American form, the traveling three-ring circus. Fall of the big Top charts how and why American three ring traditions may be going the way of vaudeville. Hammarstrom, a former free lancer for Variety, notes that when Cirque du Soleil first hit the states, opening in LA in 1987, he was so mesmerized by its stunning new approach to cirucs art that he shot off rave reviews to Variety. In them, he predicted the show's long lasting impact on public perceptions. Variety refused to publish. So why not a book celebrating Cirque's success? "First of all," answers the author, "the initial essence of Cirque gradually evolved into something quite different and far more sophisticated than what they first brought to the states in a do or die engagement at Los Angeles. I call that something "circus ballet." Secondly, at the same time, I have been witnessing the sad demise of our own American tented traditions driven into near oblivion by Cirque's tremendous influence and by the animal rights movements. And I found this story personally more moving and dramatic." A great many circus producers and performers agreed to interviews. This informs the text, promises Hammarstrom, with "vital up to the minute relevance." Readers may be intrigued by some of the chapter titles alone. Among them: "Brothers, Can You Spare a Ring?',"Spectacles Unsublime" and "Reparations for Jumbo!"
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