Clowning around A talk with Big Apple Circus’ Grandma BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

Though he spent five years with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Clown Alley at the beginning of his clowning career, Barry Lubin has been performing with the Big Apple Circus since 1982, and his character of Grandma has become one of its icons. Lubin, 53, started developing Grandma because he noticed how much the audience responded to this familiar yet very funny woman in a shapeless red dress and gray curly wig with a handbag in one hand and a box of popcorn in the other. The Big Apple Circus tours 34 weeks a year, with two shows a day in most towns. I caught up with Lubin during an afternoon intermission in Saratoga Springs, New York.

What were your inspirations for Grandma?

Fortunately, I had two beloved grandmothers. And I grew up near Atlantic City, where I watched elderly people walking up and down the boardwalk. So I based the character on what I thought a senior citizen might look like. I’m not there to act but to make people laugh. And never, ever at the expense of a senior citizen. Through this character, I realized that what would be funny would be doing things that may be very unlikely for a senior citizen.

Such as?

I realized that I could do anything as a clown. I grew up having various fantasies of being a rock star, an NBA basketball player, a professional dancer. Through clowning, it has allowed me to fulfill, to a degree, those fantasies. I remember a slam-dunk; I’ve done my version of various dancers; I’ve sung like I was a Broadway diva [lip-synching]. Last year I was a drummer because I had always wanted to do that.

I also recall a surfing sequence, a giant Hula-Hoop, and a tussle with a treadmill. What’s up this year?

This year I’m using an audience member whom I draw into the lip-synch, because there’s a male voice. When the audience member doesn’t get it or when he does, it’s always entertaining for the audience. You can never choose the right person 100 percent of the time. But when it goes really well, I always hear from people that it must have been a plant. It’s never a plant. It’s always spontaneous.

How do you decide on Grandma’s shenanigans?

My job each year is to find something even more fun and that the audience would wish they could be a part of. That’s motivating to me. As the coordinator [director of clowning], I try to figure out which bits might work best where or how to fit with the theme.

What about this year?

We have one clown and one comic performer. I’m the clown, and I direct myself very well. The other is a Russian performer — Valery — he comes to us with tremendous material. He’s kind of the anti-Grandma: incredibly slapstick, phenomenal falls, much more wild energy than my character permits.

How did the popcorn sequence come about?

When I was improvising early on, I’d go up in the audience, and since popcorn is so much a part of the circus environment, I started playing and toying with it. Just sticking my tongue out and tossing a piece onto it — I’m astounded at times what a response that gets. It’s become one of my trademarks.

When folks separate art and entertainment, they always view the circus as the latter. What’s your response?

It’s one and the same. Ironically, the theme of this year’s circus is art — artists who were inspired by the circus — and around the world, circus is considered high art. With the advent of the gigantic three-ring circus, it became more of an opportunity to sell popcorn and cotton candy. Big Apple’s founders, Paul Binder and Michael Christensen, have taken us back to the intimate experience of the circus. They really want to make the audience feel absolutely a part of it. I don’t think you can think of the circus as anything but art. It’s theater and dance and music — the only way you could ever think that [it’s not art] is if you haven’t seen us.

And what does it give back to you?

It’s very primal — the immediacy of our particular show. It elicits a very strong response for a performer, giving you that instantaneous feedback. It’s very thrilling to this day to make the majority of these people laugh. We all need that.

Big Apple Circus | Ninigret Park, Route 1A, Charlestown | July 9 through 14 | 401.783.4411