Perestroika Takes Center Ring in L.A.

The circus is always a clash of cultures--a one-night spiritual fling between wandering, daredevil Gypsies and settled, workaday parents and their children. Performers provide the universal, enduring thrill of the unimaginable risk. They put their heads in the lion’s mouth, dance with hulking bears and act in ways that the crowd cannot.

The cultural clash perhaps has never been greater than this week in Inglewood, where the Moscow Circus is in the midst of a four-day stop. The visit, which ends Sunday, is the 26th on a tour that has spanned North America for seven months.

For many in the all-star troupe, culled from the finest circuses throughout the Soviet Union, it is a first glimpse at a land of Western film stars, tall palms, fully stocked supermarkets, a chance to frolic on the stage of Magic Johnson, whoever he is. For the full-house audiences, it is a double opportunity: to tap the circus’s timeless enchantment, and also to dip a toe into the waters of perestroika.

The circus is in town.

It is Thursday night, and in a dim underground concrete tunnel painted the color of old mustard, trapeze artist Vera Akilova paces nervously, preparing for what she hopes will be a magical moment--her performance. The fatigue of travel, untold thousands of miles by bus, seems to have faded. The Forum is filling. A fast, percussive rhythm is playing over the loudspeakers. Akilova’s grin is like neon.

Moments from now, she will ascend to a dizzying height and fly through the air with the greatest of ease--and hope that her husband can catch her.

“Our souls belong to the circus,” Akilova says, grasping with her interpreter to explain the magic that has kept her performing for 15 years. “You can’t leave the circus. The ring is 13 meters in diameter. We have a saying, ‘It is like quicksand--once you get in, you can’t get out.’ ”

Performing is a life’s work--and an art--for many in the cast. In the Soviet circus, a few revered families are considered dynasties. Lola Khodzhaeva is from one such family. Her own father ran away to join the circus when he was 7 years old and became a famed aerialist. She was born into the circus. Her husband, Yuri Durov, is considered one of her country’s best-known animal trainers.

Now in her 60s, Khodzhaeva retired a year ago as one of the Soviet Union’s most famous equestriennes and is here strictly to help her son, a rider who also was born into circus life. Her only regret is that she will not be out there herself, winning cheers.

“You get tired,” Khodzhaeva says with a proud grin. “You have aches and pains, and then you come and hear the people and it’s like you’re new-born.”

The circus is in town.

For many children, this is the first circus they will see. That is why Inglewood resident Harold Whiteside has come, ushering his two school-age children to seats halfway up the grandstand. “I haven’t been to a circus since I was 8 years old,” Whiteside says, smiling. “That’s 49 years ago.”

Julio Ramirez, 15, and Ermilo Fletes, 14, are part of a busload of nearly 40 teen-agers from Echo Park. Sally Strohbosh, who grew up without ever seeing a circus, has driven in from Playa del Rey to fill that empty spot in her childhood. In the front row are Ed and Pauli Orchon, perennial circus fans who have brought their 4-year-old.

Ed Orchon personifies one of the most enduring of circus cliches. He ran away a decade ago with the circus, following a Ringling Bros. tour for months--26 shows in L.A. alone--to create a film on a Harlem group of unicycle-riding basketball players. Though the film sold only in India (“It’s big in India,” he jokes), he has developed a theory on the magic of circuses.

“It’s the smell,” Orchon says, alluding to the odor of elephants. “This is the only place that it’s acceptable.”

“You’re so weird,” his wife tells him.

He grins, turns back toward the circus ring.

The circus is in town.

Backstage, performers apply makeup in makeshift dressing rooms of curtains and rope. Nearly 13,000 miles from home, it seems to matter little that they occupy the locker room of the former “world-champion” Los Angeles Lakers.

“A baseball team?” asks Victor Romanchemko. He is Siberia-born, a stocky acrobat who fulfilled his childhood circus dream. But his wife and young daughter are at home; he hasn’t seen them since fall and won’t until after the tour winds up, somewhere in Ohio, in May.

“After 20 years, I’ve changed my attitude,” Romanchemko says of the circus life. Hampered by injuries, including several broken arms, the 35-year-old plans to retire by 40. “It’s very difficult,” he says of being away from home. “But I still love to perform.”

The cast is consumed by details--the mood of animals, the tautness of high wires, the receptiveness of the crowd. The entourage is enormous: 110 members, plus 23 tigers, 15 horses, seven bears. The performers, man, woman and beast, travel in three buses and nine trucks.

In one of the first acts, tiny, dark-eyed Asiat Agaeva performs with her family atop the high wire, forming the peak of a three-human pyramid. Afterward, she is beaming in the backstage tunnel; her act here has gone more smoothly than the last stop, in San Diego, where someone trying to hoist a teeter-totter up to the high wire pulled on Agaeva’s safety line instead.

“I was almost flying,” she remembers. “My sister was laughing so hard she was crying and her makeup was running.”

Agaeva is bubbly and witty, a far cry from the stereotype of the pre- perestroika Soviet. She recalls a time when the bottom man on the aerial pyramid felt a moth land on his nose. Afraid to remove his hands from the balance bar, he tried vainly--desperately--to blow the insect away.

“We were all laughing,” Agaeva recalls, “so the whole (pyramid) was shaking.”

Valery Serebriakov, 50, is a clown--has been for much of his life. “My father was a clown,” he says matter-of-factly. “My (second-eldest) son is a clown . . . and I’m proud. And I hope the youngest will be a clown. He’s dreaming about it.”

But the tour is too long, Serebriakov says. In the Soviet Union, he is a celebrity, performing an hour at a time. But in this all-star lineup he is a bit player. The crowds do not wildly applaud him. “Here I’m not needed at all,” he says, shrugging backstage. “I’m hungry for work, a bit disappointed.”

Still, he is relishing his first look at the United States. “The stores here are like museums,” he says in English. “Here you can buy anything you like--even strawberries in winter. It’s unbelievable.”

Inevitably, conversation turns to politics. Serebriakov says Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “is like Jesus Christ” for the reforms that have helped open the doors to the West. In the audience too there is a sense of a Cold War thaw: spectators stand respectfully for the anthems of both nations, sport “Moscow Circus” T-shirts and generally seem eager to come across as friendly hosts, as comrades in the greater cause of circus wonder.

In the idle hours between shows, cast members meet celebrities--Chevy Chase, Chuck Norris and Jamie Lee Curtis. Day trips were planned to Mann’s Chinese Theatre and Beverly Hills. A few visited Redondo Beach. Several go to the dentist.

But free time is scarce, and the performers’ salaries of 50 rubles a week--about $80--don’t go far on Rodeo Drive.

The acts go on, one after another--a six-foot bear in top hat and cape, dancing with an elegant woman; three enormous tigers sitting up like puppies atop three huge mirrored balls. The house lights dim, spotlights go on and the balls begin revolving, tigers and all. The Forum is filled with moving pinpoint lights, like stars flying across a black sky.

Beverly Robertson, 28, is ecstatic. “The things they do with animals are just amazing,” Robertson says, noting that the Soviet show--with only one ring--demands more concentration than the gaudy American three-ring variety. She throws a nod at her daughter Cashala. “The last circus, I had to drag her to go.”

Not far away, a souvenir stand is trafficking in $20 T-shirts, $8 programs and $7 battery-lighted plastic swords. “Cotton candy!” yells a young concessionaire. She pauses to share an observation:

“I like to see the kids’ eyes light up when they see the cotton candy. The parents try to hide them from it. I scream a little louder when the kids go by.”

Usher Wanda Marchand moves swiftly with a flashlight in Loge 28. She notices three young girls so entranced that they see nothing else besides the circus, not even the snacks in their hands.

“Excited!” Marchand whispers.

The finale comes as the Russian Cossacks gallop around the ring at speeds that seem to defy the laws of centrifugal force. One rider leaves his saddle, climbs down across his horse’s belly and up the other side. Another rider drags on the ground, his head inches from being crushed by hoofs.

Finally, the riders gallop round and round as cylinders descend from the ceiling. Two riders, standing, reach up and grab hold. Flags unfurl--the Hammer and Sickle, the Stars and Stripes.

The Cossacks seem to fly, majestically. Offstage, a member of the entourage gazes up at the roaring crowd. To himself, more than anyone, he observes, “They’re standing.”