Circus Audiences
Search for Historical Traces
A text by Dr. Birgit Peter
Who were these people, where did they come from, and what drew them to the innovative spectacle of the cirque, or circus, which fascinated audiences in European metropolises from the late eighteenth century onwards? Literature on the history of the circus offers little to no insight into individual spectators. Yet no circus can exist without an audience; audience support is the prerequisite for its survival.
A NEW AUDIENCE TAKES SHAPE – THE EARLY CIRCUS
The search for traces of circus audience history leads back to the predecessors of the so-called “modern circus,” which began to take shape from the 1760s onwards. Its main sites included London, Vienna, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, St. Petersburg and other cities where performances by “equestrian artists” caused a great stir.
Johann Hyam staged productions at the “Hetztheater” in Vienna in 1777, a building that had originally been erected for animal fighting. Hyam was highly successful and opened a Royal Circuit in 1780. The Austrian Emperor awarded him the honorary title of “Privileged Rider of His Imperial Majesty.” From 1781 onwards, he performed at the Imperial and Royal Riding School. The performance venues provide some information about the audience structure: at the Hetztheater, people from different social strata gathered, both underprivileged and privileged. One may assume that “better society” met at the Imperial and Royal Riding School. In a newspaper advertisement from 1781, Hyam addressed the “high nobility and the respective esteemed audience,” inviting them to witness the feats of his troupe of seventeen performers.1
In London, by contrast, the rider Philip Astley demonstrated his equestrian skills and offered public riding lessons. He called this new concept the “Amphitheatre,” and it soon became a sensation in the city. This moment is generally regarded as the beginning of the modern circus. Astley’s innovative idea was to build a venue in which to display his riding skills. In 1776, he erected a riding school: the circular open-air space for equestrian performances was enclosed by a high fence. This seems to suggest an attempt to prevent “fence guests” from attending and to ensure that the spectacle was accessible only to paying audiences. Covered boxes were attached to the fence, and a three-storey building stood behind them. The three levels are said to have corresponded to stalls, first tier, and gallery of a theatre. In 1782, he had the riding school roofed over and named it Astley’s Amphitheatre. Like other popular “artistic riders,” he combined equestrian shows with acrobatic performances (such as tightrope walking and jumping). There was also an orchestra and a separate stage for acrobatic acts.
According to circus historians such as Jewegeni Kusnezow, the audience consisted of knowledgeable horse enthusiasts from the ranks of nobility and the military. Astley exported his innovation of the roofed-over circus ring to Paris, where he opened the “Amphithéâtre Anglais” in the suburb of Temple in 1782. There however, the ring was supplemented by a stage. This combination became the model for European circus architecture in the early nineteenth century,2 as the fusion of an amphitheatrical layout with an elevated stage opened up new possibilities for spectacle.
CIRCUS VERSUS THEATRE
In 1789, Antonio Franconi took over Astley’s amphitheatre. The productions were very successful – so popular, in fact, that they drew audiences away from theatres. In 1806, Napoleon, therefore, issued a decree intended to protect “high” theatrical art from “mixing with the ‘lower’ arts.”3 Henceforth, only literary-dramatic productions were allowed to call themselves theatre. Franconi’s amphitheatre was affected by this regulation. The enterprise had been run by Franconi’s sons since 1805,4 when they renamed it Cirque Olympique. Notably, they dedicated the opening performance on 28 December 1807 to Napoleon, presenting the equestrian pantomime La Lanterne des Diogène5 as a tribute. Through this coup, they bypassed the decree and paved the way for the successful cirque concept – a label that would make circus the most popular form of entertainment internationally over the course of the nineteenth century. Circus historian Jewegeni Kusnezow contends that “young circus art adapted itself to the sporting and artistic interests of the nobility and the military, as well as to the tastes of the bourgeoisie that emerged after the French Revolution. These social groups constituted a substantial part of the permanent circus audience and shaped the aesthetic norms on the basis of which a multifaceted circus art developed in the first decades of the nineteenth century.”6 The focus on horses was elitist, the buildings sumptuous, the entertainment intended for nobility. Yet equestrian performers, rope-dancing and acrobatic troupes, as well as travelling menageries, magicians, puppet theatres etc. brought their attractions to the provinces, presenting them – as they had done for centuries – at fairs, church fetes, and other historic venues of acrobatic performance. The audiences for these arts were also to find a place in the noble equestrian circus. Circus enterprises such as the Franconis’ establishment in Paris, the Circus Gymnasticus in Vienna, and later, Berlin’s Circus Renz, to name only a few, increasingly incorporated other acrobatic performances and practices derived from the menageries into their productions. Clowns and wild-animal taming acts became principal attractions of permanent circuses. It was not only the tastes of the nobility, the military, and the educated bourgeoisie that proved decisive – the fairground audience, including less affluent social strata, was also addressed. Circuses thus created an unusual, shared space for a wide range of social classes, although class differences were evident in the structure of the auditorium.
Circus thus emerged as a threatening competitor to the theatre. Attempts by theatres to incorporate circus productions received strong audience approval but also provoked devastating criticism. The accusation that theatre was being reduced to a circus had been levelled since the 1820s. The appearance of the mysterious Miss Ella at the municipal theatre in Breslau in 1855 triggered a major scandal, as critics perceived theatrical art to be under threat. In their expansive advancement of this argument, commentators lamented the decay of bourgeois values such as decency and morality in broader terms.7 Seventy years later, in 1918, Max Reinhardt purchased Albert Schumann’s Market Hall Circus in Berlin and converted it into the Große Schauspielhaus. Seeing the circus building's innovative spatial possibility, particularly with regard to more immediate communication with the audience, he justified the conversion on the basis of the venue’s large capacity (5,000 seats) and low ticket prices. In programmatic writings on theatre however, this was met with heated polemic. ‘The deliberate staging of sensation stands on the same level as the sensationalism of gutter literature; in both cases one seeks to arouse a crude, external tension that devastates heart and mind. Theatre is debased into circus when one waits in suspense for the desperado’s death leap. The actor is placed in the same line as the acrobat, and the playwright disappears altogether.”8
CAPITALISATION AND ENTERTAINMENT
Successful circuses increasingly operated as capitalist enterprises. They competed fiercely with one another and turned this rivalry into a marketing strategy. In the process, their programmes were framed in a nationalist light. The aim was to win over audiences for the better, more sensational circus, and their participation was actively encouraged. Circus became the most popular form of entertainment in nineteenth-century Europe, the United States, and Australia – a European phenomenon that spread across the globe.
The invention of the tent – that is, the travelling circus tent – and the expansion of the railway accelerated the spread of circus enterprises, intensified competition within the entertainment market, and heightened the struggle for audiences. Phineas Taylor Barnum, director of the first giant travelling circus, P. T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome, displayed an extraordinary talent for attracting mass audiences. He became a role model for the entertainment business. Confidently, he described himself as the “Prince of Humbugs,” a master of deception, and demonstrated how mass audiences could be mobilized. Everything was merchandised – lottery tickets, newspaper articles, food, or people – everything was for sale.
From 1870 onwards, Barnum toured the country with his giant travelling circus, presenting the crowd-pulling attractions of the American Museum he had established. These included exhibitions of people as “curiosities” or “abnormalities.” These dehumanising shows were marketed as an educational offering for people of all ages, particularly families. In Europe, Barnum’s concept was practised above all at the colonial world exhibitions that boomed from the 1860s onwards. Exoticist stagings, animal acts, acrobatic performances, circus-owned “ethnographic exhibitions,” and so-called sideshows were intended to provide the public with ever new stimuli. A mass audience emerged – a globalised commercial mass culture. Audiences affirmed colonial images and thereby reassured themselves of their superiority as the white “race.” The consumption of the many “exotic” images was promoted as a form of imagined travel to “foreign continents,” as an encounter with “foreign” people through which the colonial racist “order” of white supremacy over all other cultures was put on display.9 This mass audience, heterogeneous within itself and marked by sharp class differences, found something in common for a brief moment: the illusion of white superiority.
THE MANY PREFERENCES OF A MASS AUDIENCE
Another group that the circus appealed to were sports enthusiasts. Above all, the wrestling and boxing matches held in circuses from the 1870s well into the twentieth century attracted an audience that participated actively and increasingly blurred class distinctions.
One example from 1876 at Circus Carré in Vienna’s Prater illustrates this vividly. Carré invited people to exhibition fights for which so-called “civilian athletes” could apply. The attraction lay in allowing volunteers to fight one another “without distinction of rank or class.”10 The audience engaged directly, accompanying the matches with shouts and jeers. This escalated into a tumult, prompting police intervention to calm the crowd. The crowd favourite, however, was sitting at the inn rather than wrestling and had to be summoned by the police to appear at the circus.11
The popularity of wrestling matches transformed circuses into sports arenas and into venues for international events such as world championships. Sport was no longer accessible only to the upper classes; in the circus arena, the proletariat found a space for self-empowerment and emancipation. The display of physical strength challenged the long-standing aristocratic ideals of elegance and dignity associated with high society.
From the early years of the circus onward, the staging of gender proved to be a particular audience magnet. The female equestrian artist, rope dancer, aerial acrobat, animal trainer, clown, strongwoman, and female circus director offered audiences new perspectives on gender roles. Some female performers confidently articulated a new reality in which women exposed misogynistic prejudices as absurd. The circus likewise offered an alternative to prescribed ways of life for those whose gender identity or sexual orientation did not conform to the heteronormative roles of the time.12
Around 1900, circus audiences represented the widest possible range of social groups: upper class, middle class, petty bourgeoisie, proletariat, and the circus also served as a site of entertainment for different generations. The programming of giant circuses such as Barnum and Bailey was designed to appeal to this heterogeneous audience. Others, such as Renz, Schumann, or Busch, tried to create a distinctive profile and acquire a loyal audience through a mixture of traditional equestrian circus and the integration of new acrobatic sensations. The success of this strategy is evident in the expansion of these companies, with permanent circus buildings established in different cities. Performing families and countless circus enterprises found their audiences in the most diverse regions.
CIRCUS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The outbreak of the First World War destroyed the diversity of European circus culture. Performers became soldiers, horses and elephants were used as draft animals for the war, and other animals starved. Cross-border travel became impossible. After the war, circus in a devastated and traumatised Europe had to reinvent itself. Hunger and poverty shaped everyday life, and the era of glamorous circus performances seemed to have come to an end. The grand circus palaces often stood empty and fell into disrepair, serving instead as venues for political gatherings. In this way, in 1919 a mass meeting of the unemployed took place at Circus Schumann in Vienna. At Circus Busch in the Prater, the communists assembled to demand social protection for returning soldiers and the large number of war invalids. Circus as a site of political assembly was also used early on by the National Socialists. Hitler speeches were held at Munich’s Circus Krone from the late 1920s. Circus entertainment, by contrast, was provided by small family businesses that pitched their tents locally or, as in centuries past, performed in the open air. Circus as a large-scale capitalist enterprise reappeared in the mid-1920s. The goal was to fascinate the masses and, above all, draw them back into the circus. Cheap tickets and sold-out houses and tents were the aim. Following the example of the American giant circus Barnum, German circuses such as Krone and Sarrasani relied on three-ring tents and monster shows: Krone appeared in Vienna’s Prater in 1927 and 1930; 10,000 spectators came to each performance. As a means of attracting audiences, Krone relied on human exhibitions.
The three-ring concept did not, however, endure in the long term. Audiences became fatigued by the flood of sensory stimuli. Giant companies nonetheless continued touring with a single ring. Animal acts and so-called sensation acts established themselves as the strongest attractions. Death-defying leaps, human cannonballs, aerial acrobatics, and tightrope walking without a net attracted thrill-seeking spectators.13 The Viennese writer Fred Heller criticised the brutalisation of a mass audience that was eager yet numbed and wanted only to consume sensation: “What must people devise in order to compete successfully? Ground-level acrobatics scarcely coax a smile from a single spectator. (…) From a real circus act one demands that it make one sweat. The nerves of people, so long as they are not acrobats themselves, can still endure something bolder, madder, deadlier.”14 His assessment of the circus audience was a comparison with the bloodthirsty public of ancient Rome, which celebrated the deaths of gladiators and animals in the Circus Maximus as spectacle. When the jumper Annie Ringens was seriously injured at Circus Zentral in Vienna in 1930, a tumult broke out and the police had to intervene. One part of the audience coolly demanded that the father of the injured artist finish the act. The other part protested vehemently against this.15
The brutalisation of society reached its catastrophic climax under National Socialism. Circus came under state control and companies were expected to present performers as Nazi role models who were fearless and willing to die. Circuses performed for the KdF (“Kraft durch Freude”) programmes and, after the outbreak of war, for Wehrmacht soldiers. However, this control did not always work as intended by the Nazi apparatus: circus also became a place of survival for persecuted performers. Documents suggest that the audience was at least in part defiant toward the regime, with references to an “uncontrollable mob” in the context of circus.16
After the end of Nazi rule and the devastation of Europe, circuses once again faced ruin. The desire for circus entertainment remained unbroken, but the tastes of audiences had changed. A return to the pre-war years no longer worked, as the reception of the 1951 film Manege frei! demonstrated. At its centre stands the world-famous clown Grock, who had celebrated remarkable successes in the 1930s. “Grock, once a household name for international variety and circus audiences – his acrobatic clowning used to shake the diaphragm; today, however, it is ineffective. (...) The age of clowns is over; heavily underlined jokes that once provoked storms of laughter now scarcely suffice to bring forth a smile.”17 What did continue to work, was a circus built around a familiar mix of acrobatics, clown and animal acts – no more bombastic pantomimes or overwhelming spectacles. A review from 1955 asked why the circus audience was the most loyal and grateful: “Perhaps because it can experience the performances most intensely. Nothing separates the masses in the circus from the people in the ring, from the animals, the clowns, the acrobats (...).”18
This audience diminished drastically over the course of the 1960s as competition, above all from television, made life increasingly difficult for circuses. Yet circus also found a place on television, becoming a holiday-season format, exemplified by shows such as Stars in the Ring (Stars in der Manege)19, traditionally broadcast around Christmas.
By the end of the twentieth century, the circus viewing public had diversified into a range of distinct audiences. Today, those drawn to the circus encounter a wide variety of forms: traditional family circus, cirque nouveau, contemporary circus, neoclassical circus, Christmas circus, horror circus, participatory circus, and numerous circus festivals that showcase the diversity and poetic quality of artistic production. What remains open is the question of whether, in this process, an essential element of circus – its heterogeneous audience structure and its capacity to bring together diverse social groups – is being lost.
1 Wiener Zeitung. 25.08.1781. S./p. 11.
2 Bose, Günter / Brinkmann, Erich: Circus. Geschichte und Ästhetik einer niederen Kunst. Berlin 1978. S./p. 41.
3 Kusnezow, Jewgeni: Der Zirkus der Welt. Berlin 1970. S. 24-25. Signor Saltarino: Artisten-Lexikon. Biographische Notizen über Kunst-reiter, Dompteure, Gymnastiker, Clowns, Akrobaten, Spezialitäten etc. aller Länder und Zeiten. Düsseldorf 1895. S. 69. Kusnezow: Der Zirkus der Welt. S./p. 25.
4 Hillemacher, Frédéric: Le Cirque Franconi. Detail historiques sur cet etablissement hippique et sur sesprincipaux écuyers. Lyon 1875. S./p. 13-14.
5 Ebd./Ibid.
6 Ebd./Ibid. S./p. 17.
7 Peter, Birgit: Zirkus. Geschichte und Historiographie marginalisierter artistischer Praxis. Universität Wien.Habil. 2013.
8 Schlaikjer, Erich: Gegenwart und Zukunft der deutschen Schaubühne. Stuttgart o. J. S./p. 28.
9 Lewerenz, Susanne: Geteilte Welten. Exotisierte Unterhaltung und Artist*innen of Colour in Deutschland1920-1960. Köln u.a. 2017.
10 Neues Wiener Tagblatt. 06.07.1876. S./p. 4.
11 Schlesinger, Sigmund: „Aus alten Tagen.“ In: Neues Wiener Journal. 2. August 1916. S./p. 6-7.
12 Peter, Birgit: „Zirkus queer.“ In: Müller, Gin / Peter, Birgit (Hg.): Sodom Vienna. Wien 2023. S./p. 95-111.
13 Peter, Birgit: Schaulust und Vergnügen. Zirkus, Varieté und Revue im Wien der Zwischenkriegszeit.Universität Wien. Diss. 2001.
14 Heller, Fred: „Zirkusleute.“ In: Die Bühne, Heft/no. 14, 1. Wien 1926. S./p. 31-32.
15 Arbeiter-Zeitung, 13.07.1931. S./p. 2.
16 Peter, Birgit: „Zirkus und Artistik unter NS-Herrschaft.“ In: Dalinger, Brigitte / Zangl, Veronika (Hg.): Theater unter NS-Herrschaft. Göttingen 2018. S./p. 161-180.
17 Funk und Film, 04.05.1951. S./p. 14.
18 Tiroler Tageszeitung, 03.06.1955. S./p. 3
19 Popular circus festivals now also broadcast during the Christmas season include the International Circus Festival of Monte Carlo and the Festival Cirque de Demain in Paris.
