E-Mail This Article to a Friend Lords of the ring (continued)

Al Stencell might be gratified to take a look behind the scenes of the Big Apple Circus, which teems with outlandishly dedicated people. There is, for one, Michael Leclair, the circus’s tent master. Leclair, 42, a large, bushy-bearded, rough-handed man, looks like a member of ZZ Top who’s been living on the streets for a year. But then the tent master’s job does not lend itself to physical refinement. As Leclair and his crew set up the 52-foot-high tent behind the Bayside Expo Center, the rain pours unremittingly and the wind whips in off the ocean, making, potentially, a giant kite of the tent’s PVC material. "In Boston, no offense, it’s always a little rough," Leclair says with a shrug. "The worst thing is if the tent takes off and you find it in the next county." He gestures toward the ocean churning nearby. " ’Round here, we’d probably have to go scuba-diving for it."

For all the stresses and strains of his work, Leclair, too, insists that he is happy with it. "I fell in love with the Big Top," he says, referring to the tent. "It’s alive, it breathes, it’s a part of your character. You know every scar, every strap." There is also something of the showman about Leclair. "Circus fans come to watch the tent go up," he says. "There’s lots of excitement, lots of screaming, I’m balancing on the beams. That’s my act. I do my act before the real show starts."

Of all the hardships facing those involved in the circus, however, there can be few challenges more daunting than negotiating the food served up in the cookhouse. On a recent afternoon, in the cluttered, chaotic trailer that passes for the Big Apple’s dining room, circus ringmaster Dinny McGuire sits and gnaws on a grilled-cheese sandwich that has the appearance and texture of a roof tile. "Mm, the cookhouse," he says. "Can’t beat it." As he eats, water drips onto the table from a light fixture. The air is thick with steam and the scent of cheese.

McGuire, 54, is a tall, broad-shouldered man with the kind of graying good looks that call to mind George Clooney. In the ring, he wears quasi-military outfits, with sashes and plumes and epaulettes. Today, he is wearing a brown sports jacket over an atrociously garish, fish-patterned T-shirt. The most salient thing about McGuire, though, is his mustache, a waxed, upward-curling handlebar that he acknowledges could easily take someone’s eye out. "Heh heh heh." McGuire, who has an unabashedly corny sense of humor, laughs like that a lot. "Heh heh heh." At one point, he does an impersonation of a Martian: "Nyeah-nyah, naah-nyeah-nyap."

McGuire, for one, will readily admit that circus people are far from ordinary, everyday folk. "It does take people who are special to do this," he says. "We’re different in that we haven’t found satisfaction, we don’t live in tick-tacky boxes and they all look just the same." McGuire goes on to add that life on the road can do rather strange things to a person’s sense of time and space. "Ask someone in the circus when something happened," he says, "and they’ll answer with a location. Ask them where they’re going this weekend, and they’ll tell you, but they’re not talking about Saturday and Sunday, they’re talking about Monday and Tuesday. Our life is structured in a different way. Time and place switch, time shifts."

For all his off-stage goofiness, McGuire is serious about his role in the ring. After 22 years in the circus, he knows what’s expected of him, and he knows what to expect of the people he works with. "Although Dinny is easy to get along with, and you can screw around with me all you want," he says, "when we’re out there in front of the audience, I’m the ringmaster. I’m self-important, I have that inflatedness that the clowns take their pins and pop. But you can’t disrespect me to my face or I’ll lose my authority. There are clowns who want to go ‘Phhllrrppt’ or pull my mustache or mess with my hair, but what’s the point of messing with me if I don’t have authority over you?"

McGuire makes an important point. In part, we visit the circus to see people go beyond human limitations. When two acrobats lock arms, one pushing his rigid, outstretched partner above his head, we understand that the potential of our own bodies — these hands, these arms — can far exceed our expectations. At the circus, gravity doesn’t seem quite so inflexible as it does when we’re tripping over a curb or hauling ourselves out of bed in the morning. And yet, far more integral to the circus is the element of slapstick provided by the clowns, who constantly take a pin to human dignity.

At the Big Apple, at least, clowning has always occupied a central role. It’s safe to say that the star of the show is Barry Lubin, or Grandma, who was recently inducted into the Clown Hall of Fame (despite, he says, "getting caught betting on clowning"). It was the prospect of working with this particular clown, says McGuire, that attracted him to the Big Apple in the first place. "I’d heard about Grandma, of course," he says. "Everyone talked about the legendary Barry Lubin. I was like, ‘Boy oh boy, would I like to work with that guy.’ "

Before the Sunday performance, the Big Apple backstage area is a swarm of activity, the hand balancers grimly going about the business of defeating gravity, the juggler swearing silently as one of his clubs clatters to the ground, the green-haired acrobat arcing her body, the guy on stilts testing his balance, Dinny McGuire strutting around in his purple-striped pantaloons. Later, these performers will be all smiles, but right now they seem tense, even glum. Then Grandma appears, shuffling by in that awful wig. "How do I look?" she says, deadpan, and then, getting no response, "That bad. Thank you."

In the ring, as McGuire breaks into an earnest, terrible rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In," Grandma shows up again, snatches away the mike, and, gyrating her hips in a grotesque parody of nubile sexuality, starts miming Pink’s "Get the Party Started." It’s a silly, obvious gag, but the kids in the audience are reduced to helpless laughter. A few seconds later, as this white-faced, red-nosed, middle-aged bozo dressed like an old woman thrusts his hips forward and purses his lips and rolls his eyes, God damn if you don’t start laughing along with them.

The Big Apple Circus is under the Big Top at the Bayside Expo Center, Boston, through May 9. Call (800) 922-3772. Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com