When Clowning Around Goes Wrong

I went to a Cirque du Soleil performance long ago where the primary clown/mime entered by essentially climbing over the audience. He would step on armrests and the top edges of seat backs, barely missing audience members — until he didn’t miss. He accidentally hit someone sitting right near me. The audience member wasn’t hurt but was understandably angry.

The clown entered the same way for the second act, this time carefully threading his way to that audience member with a large bouquet of flowers and a quiet apology that no one heard unless they were right next to the individual.

I don’t recall if the tickets contained a warning about what might happen, but that must have changed after this incident, surely — at least for seats in that area, which were expensive seats!