Theatre: Jungle to Garden

With lights blazing, band blaring, batons twirling, and all signposts seeming to point to Gargantua the Great, described as "the only full-grown gorilla ever seen on this continent," Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey circus arrived, as punctual as spring, for its annual opening in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden last week. Gargantua out-ballyhooed a whole battalion of new acts, out-ballyhooed Frank ("Bring 'Em Back Alive") Buck, who appeared— elephantastically in a howdah—for the first time in any circus, out-ballyhooed John & Henry Ringling North who, after payment of $823,000, last winter...