For Kids of All Ages

Manhattanites opened their windows and their hearts again last week: spring had come and with it the circus. Since last year the great Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey troupe had acquired something besides $325,000 worth of new costumes. It had acquired a new top boss--Robert Ringling, who after a rumored family wrangle succeeded his cousin John Ringling North--and a new attitude. Gone were the Stravinsky ballet music, the Balanchine choreography, the blue tanbark and all the rest of the modernistic decor which had raised complaints and possibly cut the profits. Once again everything was traditional, absurd and gaudy as a gypsy's jewels.

The 14,000 opening-nighters who got into Madison Square Garden free by buying $3,000,000 worth of War Bonds saw, for a starter, a fine turn-of-the-century circus parade. While the band blared A Bicycle Built for Two and After the Ball, boys & girls rode their tandems and dandies strutted. Then came wild beasts in gilded cages, plumed horses, heavy-footed elephants, white-faced clowns, a singing steam calliope.

Thereafter, except for more fanfare in the way of a magnificently jumbled United Nations pageant, the show offered many thrills but no surprises. Its starred newcomer is fragile Lalage who, hanging by an arm to a rope, flapjacks herself an incredible number of times in the upper air. With a two-cycle, five-man act, the perennial Wallendas outdo their past achievements on the high wire. As of yore, The Flying Councellos leap, Elly Ardelty stands on her head on the flying trapeze, Massi-milliano Truzzi juggles flaming torches. Tigers walk treadmills, horses curvet superbly and Harry Rittely sits atop seven tables and topples over backwards.

Again on display in the basement are going-on-13-year-old Gargantua and his eleven-year-old spouse M'Toto. They are still childless--because they are too young to mate, says the publicity. But the National Geographic Magazine long ago described M'Toto as a male.

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