Brown Bag Moscow Circus Finds New Life in Southland

A mischief-making clown with a mop of unruly curls, big red nose and baggy pants, Katy Troyan is little and roundish, with a versatile cartoony voice that can mimic a trumpet or guitar with equal ease.

Her handsome, gentle-faced husband, Slav, is juggler, mime and straight man, trim and dapper in top hat and white gloves.

With their grown son, Tim, they are the Brown Bag Moscow Circus, a trio of clowns who are lighting up Southland stages with a winning mix of European-flavored mime, music and slapstick.

They perform Sunday for ages 4 to adult at Lakewood High School.

Their enthusiastic reception by American family audiences delights them. It has been less than three years since they emigrated from the then-Soviet Union, spending a year in Italy before coming to the States, living in Florida for a time, teaching a special circus skills workshop at Michigan State University last summer, then settling in California.

“We had more than other people,” Katy Troyan said of her family’s life in Moscow. “A nice apartment, nice furniture, cars. But we knew we would have to leave.”

Their comic children’s television show, “Good Night, Little Ones,” seen regularly on Soviet TV, was the reason for their material success, the Troyans said. But that success was continually soured by clashes with government censors.

“They wanted us to tell kids about communism” on the show, “they cut off a Charlie Chaplin style” skit--too American, Katy Troyan said. Even their characters’ names, Tic-Toc and Mr. Bokley, got them in trouble. “ ‘It’s American style,’ ” they were told. Why wouldn’t they use “Petroushka” and “Comrade”?

Now, happy in their sparsely furnished, modest Hollywood apartment, pleased to be performing for Junior Programs of California and hoping to break into American television, the couple have no plans to return to Russia, despite the dramatic changes in their homeland. “Every day we are happy here,” Katy Troyan said.

Of the Soviet Union break up, she said, “I couldn’t believe it could happen. The government was so strong. People were so scared, they kept silent all the time.”

“It’s crazy time,” Slav Troyan said. They’re anxious about their parents who live “now in two countries, Ukraine and Russia.

“We try to send them parcels to cheer them up.” But he believes “everything will be OK, because the main thing all over world is to be freedom.”

“To be free ,” corrected his wife.

The warmth and support between husband and wife is evident; Katy praises the “beautiful songs” her husband writes and Slav laughs as she punctuates the conversation with her comical voices.

They’re proud of 20-year-old Timmy, too, even though he probably won’t stay with clowning. Between shows, he’s a teaching assistant at a local elementary school and studies computers at Santa Monica College.

Katy, 39, and Slav Troyan, 42, who met in “circus school in Russia,” say they were influenced by the Charlie Chaplin and Marx Brothers films shown there. But it was Disney’s Seven Dwarfs who first inspired Katy Troyan.

“My father was an acrobat and I was brought up in circus,” she said. “All girls wanted to be ballerinas--I was going to be a clown. One day when I was 6, maybe 8, my dad took us to see the Walt Disney movie, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and I got crazy. I have never seen such a great thing.”

She stayed up all night “doing all of those characters for my daddy and mom.” When she grew up, “I try to be cartoon, loony.”

The couple do find a few drawbacks to California life: smog, humidity and junk mail. “We receive envelopes, envelopes, envelopes.”

American television, however, is a big hit. They get to watch Lucille Ball, “a great clown, great actress, great lady.”

They even like commercials “because in two seconds you see the whole feelings of life,” Katy Troyan said.

“There’s only one thing,” added her husband. “We don’t remember what they’re trying to advertise.”

“Brown Bag Moscow Circus,” Lakewood High School Auditorium, 4400 Briercrest Ave., Sunday, 2:30 p.m., for ages 4 and up only. $4; (310) 271-6402.