the show opens with clown Ben La Barouette emerging from within a billowy
cloud of blue smoke. As a spotlight follows him around center ring, the
performers (dressed in trench coats and wearing rubber noses and blank facial
expressions) drift out in a ghost-like choreography. Eventually they form a
gauntlet, join arms, and with one quick tug, each has pulled off the other's
coat - voila! the entire troupe takes a bow in their circus costumes.
