Circus Fire
Theaterworks
Hartford
May 10, 2026
I lived less than a mile from the Hartford Circus Fire Memorial for almost seven years and never saw it once. Heck, I didn’t even know it existed.
Circus Fire, the world premiere play from Theaterworks, chronicles the story of that terrible day in July 1944 where approximately 167 people were killed, along with more than 700 injuries. The terrific performance doesn’t demand we never forget about that tragedy. Instead it sets out to tell a story so many don’t know happened in the first place.
Connecticut-based playwright Jacques Lamarre does a fantastic job of capturing the scope of the tragedy and the world it took place in, writing from a concept developed by him, Rob Ruggerio director Jared Mezzocchi. The play rips through characters and settings at breakneck speed, jumping between the past, present and future: a shady corporate boardroom, the home of families eagerly awaiting the start of the show, the morgue where the bodies are piled up. Yet the story is never confusing. The action is easy to follow. The script’s ability to juggle so many moving parts is thanks to Lamarre’s focus on the centrality of emotion in every scene. You know exactly what each character is feeling; that brings every moment into sharp focus.
The ensemble cast of Circus Fire elevates Lamarre’s strong script. Each cast member plays multiple characters across the tragedy, taking on the roles of grieving survivors, overworked circus employees, furniture movers impressed into carting bodies around the city. Each cast member infuses their different characters with their own sense of emotion and interiority. I never felt any performer was simply reading lines. They had become the characters, even if for only a few moments before the play moved on. They’re too numerous to praise individually here, but every member of the 12-person cast was sensational.
Trailer for Circus Fire (courtesy Theaterworks)
The play was performed at the Governor’s Foot Guard, the same place that served as a makeshift morgue after the disaster. The stage was a simple octagonal ring made of wood, surrounded by bleacher-style seating you would find beneath a big top, but the production made great use of the space in the Foot Guard. Performers used the upper rafters to emulate the trapeze and other performances, and the use of multimedia displays on the rafters was inspired.
The bareness of the stage helped to draw me into the world of Circus Fire, as I was constantly using my imagination to fill in the scenes. It made me an active participant in the play instead of a passive observer. It was my living room where a husband and wife discussed surprising their children with tickets, not the one the set designer built. It made the inevitable hit much harder when it did.
One of the achievements of Circus Fire is its restraint. The horror of a fire and the overwhelming loss of life are fertile ground for maudlin displays of emotion. Lamarre’s script finds an almost magical balance among despair, anger and hope. He mixes crushing loss and exhilaration deftly, and the ensemble cast calibrated their expressions of the full range of human emotion after such an event masterfully.
Its other great achievement is how much it made me think. No one knows for sure how the fire started; the best guess is someone threw a cigarette away that lit the tent on fire. That one decision, combined with a thousand other “one decisions,” culminated in an event that has had reverberations through 80 years of history.
Somehow, the worst disaster in Connecticut’s history has been almost completely forgotten. That won’t be the case for me anymore. Circus Fire has taught me not just about an awful day in the city’s history, but also about how people can overcome even the worst when they must. Go see this play.
NEXT
Circus Fire continues at Theaterworks through May 31 (the actual play is performed a short distance away at the Governor’s Foot Guard).
Jamil warms up to return to the karaoke circuit
