5 Rings of Fun Begins When They Hoist That Circus Big Top

Even when he is out of his clown get-up, Nick Weber cannot seem to wash all the white face-paint from his skin.

Flecked with white dots, his pores look like they ooze the stuff.

“Hey, it’s in my blood,” says the 55-year-old performer with the Carson & Barnes 5-Ring Circus. “I’ve got circus in my heart and sawdust in my veins.”

The former Jesuit priest, who quit the order more than 20 years ago, said he now gets spiritual fulfillment from “the laughter of children.”

Standing next to the huge big top set up on Monday in an empty Moorpark field, Weber sat back and enjoyed the short break before he had to hike up his huge pants, strap on his oversized shoes and paint on his smile.

Then he galumphs out to prance around the sawdust-covered rings for the cheering crowd.

It is a ritual he and more than 250 other performers, animal trainers, and concessionaires perform with the circus every day, eight months a year.

Early in the morning, the crews will break down the huge tent and move to the next town. In this case, the next town is Port Hueneme, where the show will set up for three days of performances, starting today.

Then the crew will tear it down once more--stacking chairs, coiling cables and loading props into trucks--and move on to Santa Barbara County, where they will do it all over again.

At a new town almost every day, the 60-year-old circus is one of the last of the traditional big top circuses.

Complete with high-wire acts, trapeze artists, big cats, elephants and the happy-faced clowns with the huge feet, the old-fashioned Carson & Barnes Circus can still pack them in. The troupe sold out its two shows in Moorpark with wide-eyed children of all ages roaming the grounds before the gate opened for the late afternoon show.

In the morning, after the crews had hoisted the tent with the help of some of the 20 or so elephants that perform in the show, more than 100 local schoolchildren were led on a tour of the trailers to watch the animals being fed and groomed.

By midafternoon, families and curious onlookers were wandering through the grounds that already held the heavy musk of elephants, lions and tigers.

“This is just wonderful,” said Lisa Gillette, carrying her year-old daughter, Madison, and hovering over her 4-year-old son, Brandon.

“Just look at him. He’s about to jump out of his socks,” she said, as Brandon raced over to look at a lumbering white-tusked African elephant.

“This is so great that it’s come to Moorpark. I don’t think he’ll forget this,” she said.

Jim Judkins, the circus manager, said that is the idea. As the circus cuts from coast to coast and border to border, they stop at small and medium-sized towns with the notion that they will be “the biggest thing going.”

The two-hour show moves at a blistering pace with dramatic turns that Judkins guarantees will wow even the most jaded of viewers.

It is easy to get sweaty hands just watching 14-year-old Renzo Ramirez of Peru. He grasps the trapeze bar as he swings out in long arcs nearly 100 feet above the ring, then lets go and curls into a double flip before he is caught by his uncle, Picolo.

Standing coolly with hands on hips, the smiling, smooth-faced Renzo confides his secret: “Just don’t think about falling.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FYI

The circus will be at the football field at Port Hueneme’s Naval Construction Battalion Center today, Wednesday and Thursday. Enter at the Pleasant Valley Gate. Shows are at 4:30 and 8 p.m. each day. Tickets at the door are $9 for adults and $5 for children. They can also be purchased in advance from Saturn of Oxnard, Vons, Sams Club, and the Channel Islands Blockbuster Video. For information, call 982-3585.