Photography by Tom Bielli

When is a circus not just a circus?

When it brings enough Halloween dazzle, creepy music, slick choreography, theatrical lighting, chilling stage setting and goose bump-raising costuming to be something extra special. And that’s what The Vampire Circus, with all its gruesome gimmickry and muscle-bound bravado, brought to the Stanley Theatre in Utica Thursday night, Oct. 29.

Somehow, it did it all in a fun, non-threatening, family-friendly way though.

The 90-minute show began with a dark stage, clanging bells and the kind of intense organ music designed to curdle your blood (or at least get it pumping rapidly). Then the curtain opened to a full backdrop: part stone church, part gothic castle and part eerie graveyard, with enough fog rolling and purple and red lights to sharpen your senses if they weren’t already on edge.

Next, a rumbling baritone narrator, clad in black, with a top hat and cape, sauntered out to give a little history of the creepy origins of the Vampire Circus: how a traveling circus came to a small town outside Transylvania, camped in (of course) a dark and scary forest, and every man, woman and child was subsequently brutalized by vampires, so, voila, the resultant vampire circus.

But wait, there’s more:

“Once every hundred years…only the loudest scream will wake the circus up,” the narrator prompted.

And on cue, the audience gave it their best guttural go and we were all off to the (heart) races, with several laughs and audience participation along the way.

Frequent entrances by a snickering clown in a top hat and striped coat, signaled by the same mischievous, creepy music snippet, helped ease any tension and horror spectres, of which there were many.

The clown’s first cameo was a comedic magic act — which wasn’t magical at all; at best, a series of purposely lame magic tricks — when he came on stage with a guitar case, in which there were several smaller nested guitar cases, the smallest of which contained a small rasping tool.

After posting a sign that read “Agony,” the clown scraped the small tool along the inside of metal bucket and a ceramic platter positioned under his chin like a violin. That was probably the worst actual horror of the evening: the grating sound made (nails on a blackboard, but worse), and it elicited revulsion, then laughter, from the audience.

Several scarf tricks and transforming stuffed white and black rabbits into a hybrid followed. The clown magician put both stuffed animals in the roomy guitar case, jiggled it violently and pulled out a black spotted rabbit. Virtually no sleight of hand, but silly fun and a break from the intensity and athleticism of the acts that preceded and followed his schtick.

The first of these was a pair of fiendish drummers who also wielded ropes attached to hard balls at their ends. The male/female duo pounded out high-energy rhythms on the drums while strutting and dancing, then spun the ropes under their legs, behind their backs, while hopping, etc. At one point, the man clogged or tap danced while spinning ropes, hitting the ball end of the rope on the stage floor as an extra tap in the routine. The couple’s finale was dueling rope-twirling while connected back to back. The man then twirled a rope with his neck before posing over the woman’s bared neck in a feigned vampire’s bite.

A mixture of the macabre and athleticism followed with an aerialist, who was carried on stage by a grotesque, dark-feathered, winged creature. Once lowered to the floor, the girl climbed onto what appeared to be a chandelier or giant lantern framework which had been lowered from the ceiling. She was raised into the air while hanging by various body parts from rungs of the chandelier frame as she worked her way around and through the perimeter to music. (Oh, to have such abs!)

Other feats of strength by young, sculpted performers included a male gymnast who did a modified rings routine, supporting his weight by pushing himself up between two hanging ribbons, wrapping and unwrapping the ribbons around his arms to raise and lower himself and holding his body in a perfect horizontal with sheer strength and stamina.

The clown returned after this athletic showcase, accompanied by what appeared to be a Chaplinesque clown in black and red striped pantaloons, but this guy, while kidding around, wasn’t kidding around at all. He was a slack-rope performer who, in between pratfalls, pulling out wedgies and checking that all his “equipment” was intact, moved from lying on the slack line to doing forward and backward rolls, a headstand and balancing on a board which, in turn, was balanced on a cylinder which rolled back and forth on the line when no weight was on it. As if that wasn’t enough to impress, the Chaplin-like entertainer balanced on one hand on the rope, threw his hat up in the air, came out of a quick forward roll and caught the hat in one smooth sequence.

The musicality of each act was clear, as movements were nearly perfectly synchronized to the crescendoes and often fast-paced, dramatic phrasing. The only mistake I really noted was a very talented juggler who dropped a ball once, but covered quickly, getting back in time with a Latin beat. He proceeded to catch balls in cups attached to a belt, juggle small balls with just his mouth, catching and spitting them back up in the air, and he kept several hats up in the air while rotating them on and off his head with each pass as he danced Latin-style. Quite remarkable.

There was nary a plumed elephant or pony, no big cats or dogs in tutus, no canvas big top or three rings, but all the skilled performers, props and glitz of a circus which could fit on the Vampires’ bus were there, including a ribbon aerialist, who was picked up by what looked like just her hair, and then climbed, twirled and hung off at least 20 feet of crimson cloth; and a couple jacked male gymnasts, one who did a modified pommel horse routine, breaking apart a stack of blocks to drop a foot onto the hand grips of the apparatus he used in lieu of the horse (in between being chased by mad scientists in white lab coats); and one who juggled knives, axes and even kettle weights (blindfolded) before plodding offstage with his creepy captors in mock chains.

Finally, an eerie bride and groom came on stage in a dark wedding processional, then gathered speed on roller skates on a round table-like structure as the “groom” swung the “bride” in circles — sometimes by one leg, once with her ankles braced in his armpits and finally by her neck! (You wonder if they always wanted to do this as they were growing up!)

So, thrills? Yes. Chills? Yes. Excitement? Yes, and a whole lot of audience participation, thanks to regular visits by the Mad Graveyard Clown!

During one interlude, he picked two kids from the audience to squirt out candles (conveniently placed on the edge of the stage so people in the front rows would get wet.) A young girl extinguished her candle with a modest squirt gun, and a young boy was handed a pressurized super-soaker to really do some damage.

Folks also got christened up and down one of the theater’s aisles as a vampire slayer sprinkled them with what I interpreted to be sanctified water. He then approached a casket on stage with a spike and a hammer and – surprise– raised the clown within with a scream and the spike implanted in his butt.

Audience members also went along with a silly bit as the clown guided them in raising, lowering, swinging right, swinging left, etc. their myriad lit cell phones.

In a mock knife-throwing bit, the clown and his silent sidekick teamed up with a blindfolded volunteer from the audience to pop balloons flanking the volunteer then inserting the knife in the backboard behind him.

My favorite bit, however, was a melodrama in which three audience members hammed it up as a love triangle which ended tragically (but hilariously) as they all spontaneously acted out their versions of succumbing to a violent death by knife. (May not sound funny, but it was.)

Whatever your cup of tea – or fake blood, the Vampire Circus had something to offer everyone with its athleticism, comedy, spectacle, music and dance (of sorts).

I would recommend this troupe for a family or date night. They brought new life (in death, if you will) to an old format.