For Michael Pauli — aka “Grandma” of the Big Apple Circus—clowning is more than a fun way to make a living. It’s a way of life. “I’m a clown,” he said minutes before show time. “It’s what I’ll be for the rest of my life.”
As families made their way onto the circus grounds at Sports Haven for Tuesday night’s penultimate New Haven performance, Pauli retreated into his private trailer to start the process of becoming Grandma, a popular clown character invented in the 1970s by another bozo, Barry Lubin.
The transformation from Pauli to Grandma happened in stages.
First, he sat in front of a mirror and daubed thick white make-up around his eyes and mouth to brighten his expression. Then he gave himself a stunned expression with two vertical dashes over his eyebrows. Dark accents at the corners of his mouth anchored his smile. And two circles of rouge on his cheeks completed the picture.
When he looked up, the result was perfectly clownish.
“The make-up is not a mask,” he explained calmly while hitting his face with a sock full of powder. “It’s a magnifying glass.”
Pauli, who has performed with the Big Apple Circus since 2003, started clowning soon after he graduated from Georgetown 15 years ago. Like many English majors, he had no idea what to do with his life at the time. So when a friend handed him a flier for a clown training program, he embraced the lifestyle.
“I realized that this” — clowning — “was basically what I was doing all along,” he said. “I’ve always liked physical comedy.”
He began his career with Clown Care, a program run by the Big Apple Circus that brings the joy of clowning to children in hospitals. When Pauli auditioned for the Grandma role, producers picked up on his natural clownishness and invited him to join the traveling circus, which tours up and down the east coast from September to July.
Since then, the circus lifestyle has left him with little time to relax.
“There are always challenges,” he said, putting the finishing touches to his face. “You never leave work. Your social life is affected. We try to make it look easy and fun, but it is hard work.”
Once he got into the ring, however, Pauli certainly did make it look easy. His goofy portrayal of Grandma, a mischievous old lady with gray curls, had the audience in stitches. While she raced around the ring, poked fun at other performers and leaned in close to the audience, children stood on their seats and screamed with joy.
Their parents were laughing, too. That, Pauli said, is especially rewarding.
“When I find an adult who will respond openly to the performance, it’s really a lot of fun.”
And indeed it was. A not-for-profit organization, the Big Apple Circus puts on an intimate performance under a circular, European-style tent. Performers are never far from the audience. Sometimes, they even slip up.
Justin Case, the company’s star biker, fell from his bicycle while trying to peddle it around the ring with his feet on the handlebars. He worked it into his routine, though, and the audience was delighted.
Pauli the clown’s bit of wisdom about surviving in the circus turned out to be spot on:
“Whatever happens,” he said, “happens.”