Mysterious Circus Tent Appears, Silent Film Performance Takes Place

SpinDizzy residents participated in a curious performance on Sunday: Apparently a live action silent film about the retrieval of a precious diadem from a gloomy castle. Beltrami, Casandro, Claude, Rocket_, Roofus_roo, Xor, Mitchell, Featherwing, Kona, and Speckles were investigating the mists that have appeared outside the entrance to Edgeworld Park (S4 E10) when the mists coalesced into a sort of creature and led them to what appeared to be a long-abandoned circus tent, containing empty stands, a sagging stage, and a large canvas screen behind it. Once inside they were joined by JasonRDT and Ali. Once inside the faded tent, they were enticed by the appearance of a spotlight into performing their own show.

When Beltrami touched the spotlight, a grainy film began to play on the canvas screen as the backdrop to the performers’ actions, seemingly without a visible projector, accompanied by an unseen piano player. As the colour drained from the interior of the tent, ghostly audience rushed in and filled the stands. While this crowd was noisy and raucous (in an hollow, ghostly way), the “performers” themselves quickly discovered that their ability to speak had been removed, and they were forced to pantomime as they acted out their story, though with a little concentration, they found the film would helpfully cut to placards of precisely what they wished to say. A sea lion, her description matching the appearance of ‘Tritonia’ as portrayed in one of the recent wheatpaste posters appearing around SpinDizzy, stepped from the shadows in the wings of the stage and set out a chest of props only to disappear again just as the film’s opening credits began rolling.

The film’s title was given as “The Heroes of Spindizzy in: CROWNING ACHIEVEMENTS.” The first scene took place outside “the castle of OAF EL’VINOS, infamous villain.” A raccoon, whose name was given in title cards as “Erik”, played the role of a guard, walking back and forth in front of the projected backdrop. After various failed attempts were made to greet and befriend him, Erik complained of the cold. Xor retrieved a fur coat from the prop chest and offered it to him, before using it to tie his arms behind his back. Erik dropped a key, but Rocket_ used his tail to pick the lock instead.

The scene then changed to a “Treasure Chamber,” where two twin female rabbits, names given in title cards as HareTrigger and RabbitFire, marched on patrol around a crown on a pedestal. The crown, called the “Weerd Gold Crown,” appeared to be a cheap stage prop. The performers dodged swinging blades that came down from the tent’s ceiling and then were attacked by the rabbit guards. Rocket_ offered to return the gate key, which caused the rabbits to become furious with the guard for losing it. They rushed off, apparently to punish Erik, while Xor grabbed the crown.

As the crown was removed, the pedestal was lifted on wires to suggest the performers were “falling” and the filmed backdrop walls crumbled, replaced by a scene of a dirt road. The heroes then climbed into an elaborate, mechanical getaway car that was lowered from the ceiling onto the stage, rumbling and shaking to simulate motion, “driven” by an anaconda whose name was given in the title cards as Sylvester. Erik, HareTrigger, and RabbitFire then appeared but this time on the projected film, in pursuit on horseback.

The pursuers began firing machine guns, and the bullets seemed to actually leave the screen and strike the getaway car, and struck Featherwing, although no serious injury is believed to have occurred. Claude used his own gun to shoot a hairball, which knocked one of the rabbits from her mount. Ali then threw a bottle out of the car’s sunroof, knocking the other rabbit down. Erik was left far behind as the car shook as if tearing off at top speed and the film came to a close, irising out to the word “FIN.”

The ghostly audience applauded wildly, and they began to look more real and less ghostly. The circus tent also appeared more vibrant and less faded and rotten. A black cat then emerged from backstage. “Oh, how thoughtless of me,” he said. “I forgot I got your tongue.” He gestured and then the performers found they could speak again. “Try to say something heroic,” he suggested, and Xor responded with, “You see, fair audience, the forces of mildly-roguish good must always triumph over evil. For evil… is gullible.”

The cat then requested that the crown be returned to him. Xor asked what he wanted with it, and the cat responded, “It’s only a cheap trinket, Xor, worthless except as a prop. And with the show is over, I merely want to return it where it belongs.” Xor replied, “Okay. I just kind of feared it would turn out to be something really powerful, and that when we gave it to you, you’d do a villainous ‘BWAHAHA YOU FOOLS’ speech.” Xor then returned the prop to the cat.

After receiving the crown, the cat waved and blew a kiss to the performers, and then a mist appeared and swept everyone out of the circus tent, back into the thick of the mists outside Edgeworld Park. Those who tried to return have been unable to find the tent again.