Behind the mask; For the performers of Cirque du Soleil, it's hard work to create the magic

--------------------------- Catching the show

"Saltimbanco" by Cirque du Soleil plays in Renton, next to Boeing, Tuesday through Sunday through Sept. 3. Tickets: $32-$65.25 for adults; $22.50-$45.75 for children 12 and under; $29-$58.75 for students and seniors. (VIP packages also available.) Information: 800-678-5440.

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Many people dream about running away with the circus.

But Sam Payne and Sandra Feusi did more than just dream. Two years ago, the Swiss-American married couple joined up with the globe-trotting Cirque du Soleil.

Now their lives are an adrenalin blur of traveling and performing in Cirque du Soleil's far-flung Pacific Rim tour of "Saltimbanco," a popular extravaganza that's playing in Renton through Sept. 3.

How did these two dedicated young artistes land coveted spots in this world-class circus outfit?

And what are their lives really like, amid the sawdust and glitter, as they ascend high on bungee cords, shimmy up poles and clown for the crowd?

Recently, we spent time in Renton with Sandra and Sam, as they rehearsed, trained and performed an evening show - a fairly "easy" day in their extremely demanding 10-show-per-week schedule here.

2:30 p.m. Before their workday starts, Sandra and Sam sit in the yard of the Renton townhouse where they're quartered, chatting about life-before-Cirque.

An amiable, soft-voiced man of 35, with a chipped-tooth grin and an impressively muscular build, Sam hails from Lincoln, Mass.

Sandra is 29, pretty and sharp-featured, with a dancer's lissome carriage and a wistful smile. She's originally from a little town near Zurich, but speaks perfect English.

Neither had any notion as youths of becoming circus performers. "Oh no," says Sam. "My whole family are field biologists." (That includes a brother, John Payne, who is a graduate student at the University of Washington.)

Sam first caught the circus bug while he was trying to be a playwright in London. There, he discovered the charm of "animal-free" circuses, and began studying acrobatics at a "hippie" circus school, Circus Space.

Sandra wanted to dance as a youngster. But in her early 20s, an American acrobat friend, Gipsy Snider (who is also in the cast of "Saltimbanco"), told her she should check out circus work.

"Are you crazy?" Sandra remembers saying. But she wound up visiting Gipsy in San Francisco, studying with Chinese circus master Lu Yi and hooking up with two one-ring outfits (Make-a-Circus and the Pickle Family Circus).

And she met and married Sam, who was also working with the Pickles and studying the Chinese circus skill of pole-climbing.

For several years, the pair were content to perform in the Bay Area for modest wages and "live for today." But signing on with the glittering, Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil "was something we both dreamed about," confides Sam. "It's what being in the Olympics is for an athlete," adds Sandra.

It was Sandra who mustered the courage three years ago to send Cirque du Soleil an audition tape. To her surprise, she was invited to Montreal to audition, then offered a three-year slot in "Saltimbanco."

When Sam tried out and was also hired, the pair were thrilled. After eight months of conditioning and rehearsals in Montreal, they would be touring to Australia, Asia and the Pacific Northwest.

"We are very, very lucky," reports Sandra. "There are many couples who are both acrobats, but only one gets a job performing."

Now the pair's life revolves around the road and the ring.

They live in a series of assigned temporary digs. They can bring only two suitcases on tour. They must keep in excellent physical condition, and maintain scrupulous self-discipline.

They have just one day off a week (Monday). Vacations are between tours. They struggle with physical exhaustion and sometimes injuries, like the tendinitis acting up in Sam's knee.

Still, Sam and Sandra love their work, which they say pays well, keeps them learning and engenders camaraderie with circus cohorts from around the world.

And there's that incomparable high of bedazzling a crowd.

"The stage is magical territory," Sandra says. "It just turns you on and lights you up, whether you're tired or not."

3:15 p.m. Sam and Sandra, wearing sweats and leotards, drive in their battered compact car to Cirque du Soleil's Renton site, a cluster of peaked white tents near the Boeing airplane factory.

They make a beeline for the "artists' room," a backstage area where cast members work out, hang out, don their costumes and await their show entrances.

Gym mats and pads line the floor. A few people lift weights and stretch. Several children make a fort out of blankets and folding chairs.

"Lots of children tour with their parents," says Sandra, who wants her own offspring. "It's actually a great life for little kids."

After some rushed greetings, Sam and Sandra head to the Big Top stage for a rehearsal of a "swing" act - a number that can be added to "Saltimbanco" if illness or injury cancels out another act.

"Saltimbanco" artistic director Pierre Parisien quietly coaches three women from Spain (Silvia Gertrudix-Gonzales, Edi Moreno Barata and Marta B. Pardos Martinez) as they gracefully manipulate hoops, balls and scarves.

Sam and Sandra are directed to romp in the background, and they don't mind. "I've been in the spotlight alone and that's gratifying," explains Sandra. "But I love the teamwork. As a solo you have no one to share your excitement with when it goes right, and no one to cry with when it goes wrong."

4 p.m. Barely catching their breath, Sandra and Sam segue right into a timed run-through of the show's bungee finale.

The two are honored to be part of this stunning act, in which four high-flying acrobats swoop and soar like a flock of doves.

To do this high-flying number, Sam and the others pull on tight elastic hip harnesses, which are then attached by metal clips to bungee cords suspended from an overhead grid.

With several other circus folks working a low-tech pulley system of wires, and trainer Warren Conley watching intently from below, the four acrobats are hoisted 34 feet up. Once in the air, they refine the twirling somersaults and swooping moves that make this routine an audience favorite.

Is it scary to be dangling way, way up near the tent peak? "Not really," says Sam. "We check and recheck our equipment all the time. Let's just say you learn to have respect for heights."

Sandra says the bungee choreography is a joy: "It's everybody's dream to fly, and we get to do it!"

4:45 p.m. Sam races over to the dining tent for a quick snack. The kitchen serves up healthy, appealing fare all day to the 53 performers, 60-member crew and office staff.

Sam nabs a garlicky pasta dish and some fruit. "I eat whatever I want when I want it," he says. "With this job, you burn off everything very fast."

5 p.m. Sam dashes over to the Russian Swing rehearsal. This is another crowd fave, with a bevy of clownish performers executing flying flips, multiple somersaults and pyramid jumps off a big swing kept in furious motion.

Sam doesn't perform any of the featured tumbling stunts. "You have to train very hard as a gymnast for years to do that well," he says. "I started in acrobatics at 25, which is kind of old."

In this bit, he and Sandra are zanies who "spot" the tumblers, helping catch them if anything goes awry. (It seldom does, they claim.) It's also their job to "come up with ways to celebrate when someone makes a hard jump."

6 p.m. Back at the dining tent, Sam is chowing down again: more pasta, lots of chicken and veggies. Sandra snatches a bite, but will have to eat more after the show.

The tent is full of performers fueling up, chatting in their native languages (French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian), and in English, the lingua franca here. But like the artists' room, it is a surprisingly quiet place. No radio, no TV blaring. Just quiet conversation.

6:30 p.m. Each performer has his or her own customized makeup design to apply for the "character" he or she plays in the show. Sandra's look is minx-like, with pink streaks to match her hot-pink, caped baroque costume.

Sam's makeup is droopy-eyed, with violet accents. It takes him a good 15 minutes to paint on the layers of cream, powder and liner.

7:30 p.m. Sandra and Sam put on their opening-act duds. They'll make three more costume changes during the two-hour-and-45-minute show.

Do they have good-luck rituals? "There are lots of secret hand clasps, handshakes and backslaps we do with the others before some acts," Sam reveals. "If you forget them, you are in deep trouble."

Before the bungee act, Sandra says, she looks up and thinks fondly of her late father: "I feel he's with me, like he's my guardian angel."

8 p.m.-10:45 p.m. Showtime!

Some 2,500 excited adults and kids are crammed into the Big Top chortling at the "animator" clowns romping through the aisles.

Barely recognizable in their fanciful masquerades, Sam and Sandra zip through their many performing duties with the finesse and panache of seasoned pros.

Sam makes his featured hand-over-hand journey up a pole flawlessly. Sandra nimbly cavorts beneath the double tightrope walker Wang Jingmin. Both of them react vividly to the feats of the remarkable teenaged juggler, Maria Choodu, and join in the Russian Swing antics.

And to the swelling notes of an Italian aria, their bungee act comes off without a hitch. It's breathtaking, true poetry in motion.

11:15 p.m. After taking a bow with their colleagues and savoring a thunderous ovation, there's just enough time for Sam and Sandra to shed their costumes and get to an onsite improv-acting class.

The class meets twice weekly, and it's optional. But the couple is eager to acquire extra skills. Both are determined to be versatile performers, because the future is unclear. Maybe they'll get another three-year hitch with Cirque du Soleil (in "Saltimbanco" or one of the company's other six shows). Or they might move on to other jobs.

"We don't want to get too comfortable or complacent," says Sam. "We need to keep growing."

That means taking a late-night class before another mini-meal, then catching up on e-mail and getting to bed around 2 a.m.

Tomorrow there will be no rehearsals, but two shows. For Sam and Sandra, it's another day in the circus - a place of big dreams, amazing feats and hard, hard work.