Series Review: American Experience: The Circus

This 2018 PBS series provides a thorough report

This four-hour 2018 mini-series, funded by various private charities through PBS and partly subsidized by the National Endowment for the Humanities, aired and can be viewed in two parts via PBS. I recently watched the TV program, which is engrossing, while conducting research for fiction writing.

The Circus focuses on America and how this unique form of arts and entertainment captures pioneering commercialism and individualism. Quoting children’s book author E.B. White, a voice asserts that “the circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything I know. Its magic is universal and complex. Out of its wild disorder comes order. From its rank smell rises the good aroma of courage and daring. Out of its preliminary shabbiness comes the final splendor.”

This program unfurls a modernly marvelous story, which I strongly recommend. From early innovat…