Roll up, roll up, the circus is coming to town! There's a bicycle wheel of death, a death-defying highwire act, Brazilian knife-throwers and ... real-life African elephants!
OK, so they're not real elephants, but they are very convincing.
![<i>Circus 1903's</i> elephants Queenie and baby Karanga were created by some of the team behind <i>War Horse</i>.](/web/20161125133127im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/v/s/8/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsvs1j.png/1479933094481.jpg)
Created by some of the team behind War Horse, the puppets in Circus 1903 – mother elephant Queenie and baby Karanga – captivate onlookers with their life-like movements. Mum requires three puppeteers on stilts, moving together gracefully as if they are one. Karanga, who gambols across the ring with the boisterousness of youth, is a solo effort.
"The thing I love about them the most is the emotion," says The Works Entertainment creative producer Simon Painter, who is finally realising his dream of putting on a show that transports audiences back to the golden age of circus. Circus 1903 will have its world premiere in Canberra from December 1, before touring Sydney, Melbourne and overseas.
![Puppet master: Karanga the bay elephant plays with members of the audience in <i>Circus 1903</i>.](/web/20161125133127im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/v/s/8/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsvs1j.png/1479933094481.jpg)
Alongside the elephants, contortionists, acrobats, stilt-walkers and and other circus folk will perform real circus acts from history. Some of the international cast hail from circus families that go back generations.
"We're bringing back acts from all the four corners of the globe," Painter says. "A lot of them haven't been seen in nearly 100 years."
Don't expect a narrative arc, and definitely don't expect any proselytising about animal cruelty. This is about entertainment pure and simple, says Painter, and "the grandeur, the decadence, the romance" of the circus of old.
"I wanted to bring circus back really to the foundation," he says. That meant having to recreate the excitement of animals, and elephants were the star attraction.
A team of creatives, led by Mervyn Millar, spent about a year devising the elephants. They studied videos to try to capture the character of the animals, and used moulded mesh thermoplastics and aluminium to keep the weight to a minimum.
"It's been a principle of my design for a long time that it's OK to have gaps between the body parts," he says. "It gives more freedom of movement for the puppeteers."
It's all in the art of suggestion, rather than trying to recreate something completely real.
"It's about giving you something that lets you imagine an elephant," says Millar. "The magic happens between the stage and the audience. It happens in your heads when you create the elephant."
Circus 1903 is in Canberra from December 1-10; Sydney from December 18-29; and Melbourne from January 3-12.