Donkey on Ice

The unusual comedy art of Karl Kossmayer and his mule (with a new discovery)

One of the most intense circus experiences of my childhood was the act of the “unrideable mules”: in wich a good dozen of spectators is invited to win a prize if able to complete a ring circle on the back of the savage quadrupede, catastrophically ending with the impossible attempts of a quiet but tenacious old man. Later, you could have spent weeks puzzling if he was a genuine spectator or some kind of strange performer.

For me, the image of the little old gentleman, approaching the ring with his program in the hands, pursued by his wife and finishing to lost his pants, was a shock. A contrast between the greatest humor and a feel of unease; a masterpiece on the border between fiction and reality, completely played on the separation line between the shadowy space of the audience and the bright territory of the performer. Was this man from the circus? Nobody could really answer in front of the immense showmanship of Karl Kossmayer. A perfect illusion in which, long before Wharol, everybody was promised five minutes of celebrity. And, slowly during the act, this little character carried to the ring a perfect history of an universal retired middle-class type, life-dominated by his wife’s discipline, and wasting in few second all his life’s boring dignity to reach the impossible world of the clowns.

This was great drama, revolutioning the roles of the theatre far before the avant-gardes. An actor impersonating a spectator who wants to be an actor, without declaring to be acting… Pirandello was nothing, compared to Kossmayer.

Karl Kossmayer (1917-2000), from a great trainers family, started his act in 1928, and with it toured the globe, generating imitators all around the world. His sister Julie impersonated perfectly “the wife”. Starring with the best jugglers, acrobats, clowns, trainers of his time, his act was so strong on the audience that the only place to put it was mostly to close the program.

The act was filmed by the great Jacques Tati as part of his circus movie “Parade”, in 1974 (mostly of the movie critics are still thinking that this perfect act was a Tati’s idea).

And now, our little discovery.
In fact, we have found also an unusual clip. Kossmayer toured briefly in Usa with Holiday on Ice of 1960. That’s it.
They used to put for few minutes a carpeted circus ring on the ice and display the mule act. And the comedy effect was emphasized immensely when Karl repeatly covered on ice the distance between his loge seat and the circus ring, with a masterful catalog of falls and trips. Unfortunately, his American success was short, because, for safety issue, audience members were discouraged to test their skills with the “dangerous” mule. The homeland of rodeos was starting to be politically correct also for the masters of European circus artistry.

I became friend with Karl in his last years, always sharing wonderful times visiting the Monte Carlo Festival.

Today we wants to divulgate his art to the new generations of the world, with a double tribute: his act in the traditional version, from the mentioned Tati movie; and our discovered excerpt of the way he did it on Holiday on Ice, from a forgotten Ed Sullivan special.

Karandash, a King among Klowns

In concentrating our attentions on the most bizarre anomalies of the performing humanity, too often we forget the beauty of pure comedy.

We promise to our smiling followers to concentrate more of our future researches on peculiar and obscure achievements in the art of laughmaking, possibly in his most virtuosistic and inusual ways. For the followers of this speciality, we also remember you the existence of our friend sites www.clownalley.net, and www.circomelies.blogspot.com, more faithfully devoted to clowns.

Today we unearth a Soviet clip of the 50s: a circus reprise of Karandash (Mihail Rumyantsev, 1901-83), the pioneer of the legendary russian clowning, from a documentary of the time.

His artist’s name means “pencil”: his speciality was the social and political parody (often of the strongest ans shocking nature), as a sort of living cartoon strip, against capitalism and western society. Nothing apparently remains today to witness this strange kind of clowning confusely based on Hitler pigs, Uncle Sam’s pagliaccis and similar strange gags. The only, rare, surviving Karandash material is classic clowning, but at his best.

Karandash started as a Chaplin emule, to quickly develope his own style and tour the world with the Soviet State Circus companies. We hope he will amuse you still today, as he did for millions around the globe.

Burlesque Bycicling

Joe Jackson and his cycling clone

Mastering a talent can often be the secret of a comedy genius. Juggling, dancing, magic, music, singing, tumbling, drinking galons of water or balancing billiard tables have been the excuses at the roots of the greatest clowns. Mastering a technique to destroy it for comic purpose.
In this way, austrian performer Joe Jackson become one of the most requested vaudeville headliners at the turn of the century. His son followed up to the 70s with the same act. Joe Jackson's technique was to destroy our basic skills of going on a bike to turn them in a string of unconveniences.




So genial was the idea, he was forced to bill himself as "the original", as on this poster we recently came across:


While recorded memories of Jackson act don't seem to exixts (but his son's verson have been televised), one of his antagonists was luckier in the preservation to eternity: is the case of Sam Barton, a Jackson clone (even if with some difference) that glowed for awhile in the British music hall.
So, for your enjoyment today, a poster of the original Joe Jackson and a film of Jackson's emule Sam Barton: