The Rosehill Circus

The circus. It’s a place that kids in tales of old want to run away to. It’s a source of entertainment, of spectacle and acrobatics and colourful displays of stage lights and decor. It’s meant to distract viewers from the worries of their everyday lives: work, running errands, interpersonal conflicts, and so on. At said goal, the showcase succeeds for many.

Trained professionals fall gracefully from the ceiling on disheveled harnesses. They perform cartwheels and contortions off-limits to even some of the most elite Olympic gymnasts, somehow sustaining few to no physical injuries in the process. Mysterious creatures and artifacts deck the floor, soaring through the air on strings as well.

As the orchestra plays, cheers and claps from the audience mix in with drums and melodies. Oohs and aahs reverberate through the sphere, though never enough to drown out the heavily practiced score. Tears fall, laughs trickle, and stories are told. For just a few hours, the only thing that matters is the exhibition.

I’ve seen a few circuses throughout my life, metaphorical and literal. They were of varying quality and size, but I enjoyed most of them. However, I had somehow managed to avert one of the most notorious modern circuses of all until recently: The Rosehill Circus.

Don’t get me wrong, I had viewed glimpses of The Rosehill Circus prior to my first full encounter. I found the promotional images interesting, with their zany Saturday morning cartoon logic and ink splashes. I knew it didn’t rely on as many people as a lot of other circuses. I knew people who were fond of it, and who created their own mini-reenactments of select scenes as a result.

But until I decided to finally watch the spectacle I had seen friends and foes alike lose their sanity over, I had no clue what the story was even about. I checked out a few spoilers beforehand, as I often do for shows and books, but they didn’t exactly help me out either. Once I sat down, though, I was hooked.

Like always, I was awed by the technology involved. I also eyed the choreography and art direction with a locked sense of vision. However, this time, it was the story that caught me the most.

Most circuses I had seen before did have plots, all right. These plots were also honestly, rather paper thin. They served two purposes: to bring out carefully timed emotions from the audience, and to create a guide for performances.

The Rosehill Circus, though, was different. Mixed in with the dazzling animations during the show was a genuine, linear story. Sure, there were flashbacks here and there. But there was also a clear outline of complex heroes and villains, with motivations ranging from pain to love and greed and compassion and everything in between.

There were characters resembling base personalities I’ve seen and known in real life. Naive everygirls with fickle hearts that become wearier over time; mentors who try to see the best in most people but aren’t afraid to fight when they can’t; jerks with repressed hearts of silver and loneliness rather than gold; publicly affable men who abuse their power behind closed doors.

One personage, in particular, stood out to me for both his eerie resemblance to a specific man I knew years ago and for his differences. His voice sounded similar to that man. He had a similar mentality to that man about people, being prone to oversimplifying them when needed for his twisted plans. He even had similar power levels, though for very different reasons.

The difference between this personage and the real life man was that the former was much more open about his callousness than the latter. Yes, both did have spades of goodness in them despite their callous streaks. But the Rosehill personage didn’t bother to wield these spades for sympathy points, something I found morbidly cathartic. He ruled with fear, and it worked.

One of his most frequent targets had the voice of a woman I once knew, though their roles and personalities were complete opposites. Another personage was portrayed by someone from a place I had long since escaped — and that he had been distant from much longer than I had.

Regardless, sometimes I wondered whether I enjoyed the Rosehill Circus solely because it was of high quality…or if I was trying to suppress the pain of a past I couldn’t mentally escape no matter how hard I tried.

Then a few weeks passed, and the crew was in crisis.

You see, as with most in show business, the crew members came from rather…privileged backgrounds, to say the least. Money was no object to most of them, and many hailed from the most affluent-on-average cultures of their residences. They were also sorely lacking in official training for public relations.

Naturally, this led to them being prone to comments that made their affluence obvious — especially in the years before they were cast for Rosehill. The increasingly politicized atmosphere in the outside world didn’t help matters either. Sure enough, things were dug up. The crew panicked. And many viewers lost their sanity, to be blunt.

What was once a slight hometown pride of the place I escaped became a hometown nightmare. Some residents tried to defend the crew against the backlash they got. Others wished the crew had gone further in their ill-thought out comments. Both were passionate about their stances.

Weirdly enough? I couldn’t help but care.

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