Clown

Cirque du Soleil, whose mix of art, daring and high style is a showbiz trademark, opened Alegr?a under its tent at Broad Street and Washington Avenue on Thursday, and proved that you don't have to have the world's strangest acts to make the whole thing work. In the past, I've seen Cirque's artists tossing around huge spools, scaling a dozen or so wobbly tables, and playing a form of ping-pong on a tongue. Alegr?a, which means elation in Spanish and has been touring for a decade, takes more-traditional acts to their extremes.

Mike Behnke entered Rowan University in the fall of 1991 to earn a business degree so he could help run the family lumberyard. "I thought my future was all set," said Behnke, whose family's business was near their home in Pompkin Lakes, Passaic County. "I majored in marketing and took other business courses so I could come up with new ideas. " But Behnke said he learned senior year that God had other plans. After graduating in 1995 with a marketing degree, he didn't go back to Pompkin Lakes but to Nyack, N.Y., the home of the Christian Alliance Theological Seminary.

BOB HOPE, during the height of his popularity, tried to enlist during World War II. He was turned down and was asked to serve the nation a different way: as an entertainer for the troops overseas. Since then, he re-upped for every conflict, becoming an army of one as he brought a bit of home to soldiers during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War and throughout the Cold War. He was movie star who was willing to face down bombs in war zones and his own fear of flying to make someone laugh.

Back in the day, detente between the United States and Soviet Union was preserved in part by a situation called "mutually assured destruction. " Each side knew the other side had enough bombs to punish anyone who bombed first. So nobody dared. Republican State Majority Leader John Perzel (R., Phila.) apparently missed that history lesson. His ill-conceived Thanksgiving Eve state takeover of the Pennsylvania Convention Center board tossed a bomb into the already explosive atmosphere of Philadelphia politics in a mayoral election year.

Alfred M. Cunard Jr., 95, a retired supervisor for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and a former member of the Deptford Township Board of Education, died of complications from pneumonia Tuesday at Greenbriar Nursing Center in Deptford. Mr. Cunard was a lifetime resident of the Almonesson section of Deptford. His involvement in the community included serving 17 years on the school board beginning in the late 1950s, coaching local sports teams, and driving a vintage fire truck at neighborhood events while dressed as a clown.

It's about two-thirds of the way through Flop, and the three women characters in the Pig Iron Theatre Company show are in big trouble. First, they broke the clock that somehow governs the passage of universal time, and that stopped not only time itself, but the motion of the Earth. Then, as they broiled in perpetual sunshine, one of them accidentally shot the sun out of the sky, and now they are freezing and desperately looking for a way to get Old Sol working again. Well, you don't have to know any more to get the idea that Flop is a silly show.

Stephen Sondheim's song "Send in the Clowns" concludes with the wistful suggestion, "Maybe next year. " But there is an earlier line that applies to Philadelphia theater at the moment: "Don't bother, they're here. " Clowns and clowning are integral to two local offerings: Madame Ranevskaya, premiering tonight at the Adrienne theater, and Flop, a show that Pig Iron Theatre begins previewing tomorrow and opens Saturday at Christ Church Annex. While Flop is full-fledged clown theater, with its three performers sporting red noses, Madame Ranevskaya incorporates clowning by some characters into an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard.

Travel back in time with a historian and a fool to learn a little and laugh a lot at two very different events this weekend. Rick Spector has been teasing the minds of Philadelphians for almost 20 years with his history-based lectures and shows. On Saturday at 2 p.m., the Atwater Kent Museum will host Spector as he presents a program of Philadelphia history and trivia set to the theme of an old-time radio quiz show. "It's not a quiz for younger Philadelphians," Spector said.

REGARDING THE recent letter detailing how some City Council members were late for their own meeting. I say surprise, surprise! I have attended several of their meetings, and lateness is usually the rule - not the exception. At one meeting, Councilman Nutter brought his kids into the chamber to play and read with him, thereby distracting him from very important testimony. Councilman Goode was there on time, but wore a flanel shirt with a baseball cap on backwards.

Sure. A clown in an advertisement for a funeral home. Sounds more Saturday Night Live than Bordentown, N.J. But there he is, 67-year-old funeral director Bill Huber, beaming out of the newspaper ads, plastic nose, curly white wig and striped overalls: Bill Huber. Part time Shrine clown. Full time human being. He's no sad-faced Pagliacci, this guy. He's all smiles. But he's aiming to win the business of a tear-streaked customer base. The ad campaign is the brainchild of Potter, Katz, Postal & Ferguson Inc., an agency in North Hollywood, Calif.