Carnival Diablo - Sideshow Renaissance
Events / 10/2/2007 2:24:14 PM
Featuring guest writer, Miguel Gallego, collector and maker of horror films extraordinare.
The carnival sideshow is not dead - yet. Sure, political correctness killed the classic freak show. And anyone can watch bizarre human behaviour 24/7 on the internet. But that’s a disconnected plastic “reality” for our increasingly sanitized society. You cannot compare it to the visceral thrill of a well-executed live sideshow performance. So, thank your favourite deity that the sideshow - a real live presentation of that dangerous and forbidden other world - has not perished from the Earth. It’s still ALIVE! And one sideshow has moved to centre stage.
Spawned on April Fools Day 1992,
Carnival Diablo
continues to amaze and shock audiences with its sinister take on a
Victorian-era style sideshow. Inspired by his grandfather’s carnival
career, Scott McClelland created a theatrical fever dream by
combining equal parts P.T. Barnum and Paris’ Theatre du Grand
Guignol – with a fiery dash of Dante’s ‘Inferno’. This show is
definitely not for the kiddies.
I was lured by posters and website ballyhoo to Carnival Diablo’s
15th Anniversary show at Brampton’s Rose Theatre
(Ontario, Canada). Setting the mood in the lobby is a creepy
animatronics clown perched on a pole. Carnival music plays in the
auditorium. The show’s ominous props and apparatuses lurk on the
dark stage. Above them hang old-style hand painted banners
announcing the attractions: Electric Chair, Bed of Nails, Block
Head...
The two-hour show begins and Ring Monster Nikolai Diablo leads a
20-in-1 show of illusions, psychic ability, and acts of human pain
and suffering featuring Countess Vanessa, the Mighty Leviticus, and
the beguiling Theodora. Of course, this sideshow also relies
on audience members to participate, and in some cases, um…
‘interact’ with the performers.
“The audience bonds on a certain level knowing what they are
witnessing is real and very dangerous”, says McClelland.
“Magic still exists in the world of the sideshow.”
But you gotta believe it. Stow the ‘tude and let yourself feel awe
and wonder again. It’s good for the soul. The play ‘Peter Pan’ asks
its audience to clap if they believe in fairies. Thus preventing
Tinker Bell’s light from dying. I applaud Carnival Diablo for
keeping the faith in our increasingly cynical age.
Ladies and gentlemen, this way to the egress…
Miguel and Diablo gang!
Jill's p.s. You can reach Miguel either through his website the Crypt Club or through killer-works email
p.p.s. Carnival Diablo is also presenting The Paranormal Show: a “Spectacular assortment of Inexplicable Feats that will make you question everything you thought you understood about REALITY.”
