BRATTLEBORO-This summer's One-Man Circus-in-a-Suitcase tour - the work of performing artist and circus teacher Kevin O'Keefe - rolls into Living Memorial Park on Friday, July 12, at 10 a.m.
According to publicity materials, this free show, sponsored by the Brattleboro Parks and Recreation Department, has been performed more than 500 times around the globe "for family theater audiences and school assemblies alike and gives everyone an opportunity to participate in an enthralling, whimsical celebration of the imagination."
O'Keefe, 65, founded his company, Circus Minimus, in 1985.
"I was street performing outside the Metropolitan Museum [of Art] and Central Park Zoo," he recalls. "I put together my best 30 minutes, and one day I came home and looked in the garbage outside of my apartment and saw a suitcase from the 1940s with a leather handle.
"I grabbed that and I thought, 'I could fit my whole show in this suitcase.'"
He brought the suitcase in, cleaned it up, and filled it with everything he would need.
From this one suitcase an entire circus emerges: tent, band, lights, and personas: "the boisterous ringmaster Steve Fitzpatrick, the officious Mervin Merkle, the incredible Bumbilini Family, the "Magician to the Stars" Clyde Zerbini, and Keefer, an innocent trying to run away and join the circus."
O'Keefe explains that the most important performers emerge from the audience, where each performance becomes a dialogue and a lighthearted collaboration between the characters and those watching.
Today, Circus Minimus includes five programs.
The Circus Kids Create is an artist-in-residence program where O'Keefe creates a community-based circus in two weeks; the One-Man Circus-in-a-Suitcase brings him to perform in schools, theaters, and community centers around the world.
During the school year, Circus Minimus collaborates with schools for a variety of integrated curricula that let students join the circus without having to leave school. These include Circus Around the World, Time Machine Circus, CircusYoga, CircusYoga and the Human Body, and Life Sciences. In 1998, with his wife, Erin Maile O'Keefe, he co-founded the practice and community of CircusYoga.
The Commons spoke by phone with O'Keefe to discuss his tour, how this show came about, and how he has dedicated his life to the study of circus and the practice of teaching. The following an excerpt of that conversation.
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Victoria Chertok: As the founder and artistic director of Circus Minimus, you have directed residencies and given performances that have reached over 100,000 children and their families all over the globe. That's remarkable. How has your One-Man Circus-in-a-Suitcase evolved over the decades?
Kevin O'Keefe: It's evolved as my skills have evolved and my aesthetic has evolved. The show includes a host of circus characters and is a showcase of my skills and the circus, in general.
The idea that I have a suitcase, and inside the suitcase I have an entire circus, never fails to amaze me. I did a show in New Jersey last week and I walk in with a suitcase and people just say, "Oh, here's a guy with a suitcase. Hmmm. What's he doing?"
Then when I start the show, they say, "Oh, my God, it's a circus tent!" Then they start screaming, and the lights go on in the circus tent, and it's magic. I love the idea of creating something that is magic.
V.C.: How did you design this particular one-man show?
K.O.: It has an old-time feel of the 1940s. [The Italian film director and screenwriter] Federico Fellini was a real hero of mine, particularly his La Strada.
When I was in my late 20s, a theater company I was in got the rights to La Strada from Fellini himself, with the stipulation that we not bring the show to New York City.
So we did it in Middlebury, Vermont, and we performed it in a big field up there. We created an Italian piazza and had a circus tent and a high wire. I walked on the wire and played the fool.
V.C.: When did you know that this idea of yours would take off?
K.O.: I knew the idea would work in New York City about 10 years ago. I was performing it for a family audience.
I would go backstage and put on a hat, take off a mustache, put on a scarf, and come back out.
A 7-year-old kid was in the front row and he goes to his friends, "Guys, it's the same man?!?"
It was, like, OK - this is going to work!
It works in any situation, any culture, and any family. The verbal humor the parents get, and the kids get the physical humor.
V.C.: How did you develop the various characters in your show?
K.O.: Through my theater training, all these other characters evolved. I worked with a director from Mummenschanz, the Swiss troupe. She came in with this drawing and she showed me a suitcase. One of the characters was popping out. There was a tent and a ringmaster, and she said, "I think we should build this!"
So we hired a set director, we got a bigger suitcase that could fit the tent, and we found a seamstress who made tent fabric. We hired a scene painter who painted on one of the window shades that would roll down.
We sewed Christmas lights onto the tent and put a flag on top, and voilà - we had a tent that could come out in 30 seconds.
This director had this brilliant idea to make the metaphor real. It was life-changing for me.
V.C.: Of all the characters you play, which one is your favorite?
K.O.: I really like the head usher, who is kind of a stressed out, officious guy who takes himself and his job far too seriously.
The other one is a magician from Las Vegas, and he turns one kid into the star of the show.
It never fails to amaze me how a person right out of the audience could become the star and take the stage and own the stage.
I love how that happens!
V.C.: You and your wife, Erin Maile O'Keefe, taught in India for a decade. Are you still teaching circus there?
K.O.: We've been training teachers for a few years in India. Erin and I had an ongoing project in four different cities in India training social workers in group homes. We did that until 2020 and Covid, and we might go back this winter.
V.C.: You grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. When did you move to southern Vermont?
K.O.: Erin and I moved to Brattleboro in 2003. Erin runs Artful Streets programming for Gallery Walk and she does teaching residency programs at schools throughout New England. She teaches a program, Water Way(s), which is an environmental exploration of the Whetstone Brook.
V.C.: What is it about living and working in southern Vermont that appeals to you?
K.O.: I love the access to an audience anywhere in New England. I love the environment of southern Vermont.
I grew up going to West Townshend's Taft Hill, visiting my aunt who lived there. I did a circus in Bennington and Manchester, and in St. Johnsbury. I worked at Bread and Puppet Theatre for three summers.
I'm like a Vermonter. If someone cuts me, I bleed maple syrup!
V.C.: Ha! That's a good one!
K.O.: I get to be a part of this community that I feel so connected to. I love that fact that if you want to make anything happen in this state you need four other people who will say yes to your idea, and you can probably make that happen.
V.C.: Any closing thoughts about your show on Friday?
K.O.: This one-man circus-in-a-suitcase show is a chance to run away and join the circus and be back home for dinner!
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Circus Minimus's free One-Man Circus-in-a-Suitcase takes place on Friday, July 12, at Living Memorial Park's Shakespeare Theatre outdoor stage. It starts at 10 a.m. and runs for one hour.
For more information, visit circusminimus.com.
Victoria Chertok covers arts and entertainment in Vermont for The Commons. She is a classically trained harpist and received a B.A. in music at Bucknell University.
This Arts item by Victoria Chertok was written for The Commons.