Santa Ana, Yorba Linda Shows : You’re Practically in the Act at Circus Vargas

Warning: If you’re faint of heart or allergic to elephants, don’t sit in the front row at Circus Vargas.

Touring Orange County through Thursday, this circus prides itself on an intimacy between audience and performers that it claims just can’t be found in larger, arena-style shows. Under a huge big top tent are lions and tigers, clowns and jugglers, high-flying daredevils and, of course, elephants, all performing amazing feats within feet, and sometimes inches, of the crowd. And in the grand finale, a pack of plucky pachyderms presents a pulse-quickening pyramid positioned precariously over your pates.

Circus Vargas is the kind of big-top extravaganza your grandfather remembers from his boyhood. Granted, the costumes are skimpier and the souvenirs are cheesier, but there’s a midway with pony and elephant rides, and even a seedy sideshow.

“Part of the fascination of this circus is that it’s so alive,” said ringmaster Joe Pon, who is in his 11th year with the 20-year-old troupe. “You can smell it, you can see it. You’ve very, very close. You see every smile, every mishap. Those are things you miss in an arena because you’re so far away.”

Circus Vargas visits nearly 100 cities each year, pitching its football field-size tent in parks, fairgrounds and shopping center parking lots. The cast includes 400 two- and four-legged performers from throughout the world, most of them hand chosen by founder and president Clifford Vargas.

Alan Gold and the “world’s largest array of lions and tigers” headline this year’s edition. In black spandex, silver studs and a mane of blond hair, Gold looks more like a heavy-metal rocker than a master of wild beasts, but he sure puts the cats through their paces. Tigers leap through hoops and walk on their hind legs at his command, and ferocious-looking lions roll over as sweetly as pussycats. In his finale, Gold places his head inside a lion’s mouth for several tension-packed moments.

Other acts include the Olate Brothers and their pack of comic trained dogs, Rosaire’s Chimps, the James Crawford Liberty Horses, and Ted Polk and his elephants featuring “Colonel Joe,” an amazingly light-footed fellow considering that he tips the scales at 11,000 pounds.

For thrill seekers, there’s trapeze acrobatics by the Flying Quirogas; the Neves Family, performing on the perch pole, and the Marinellis, who conquer the “Whirling Wheel of Death,” a huge, counter-balanced contraption that revolves at high speeds, threatening broken bones and worse with every spin.

Circus Vargas performs through Monday at Centennial Park, Edinger Avenue and Fairview Street in Santa Ana. Show times: tonight at 8, Saturday at 12:30, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 11:00 a.m., 2:00, 5:00, and 8:00 p.m.; Monday at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. From Tuesday through Thursday, it will be at Yorba Linda Regional Park, off the Riverside Freeway at Imperial Highway. Show times there: Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.. Tickets: $4 to $14.50 for children, $8.50 to $18.50 for adults. Information: (714) 541-5236.