Playing Ping-Pong

Playing Ping-Pong steps away from the staged battles, riding exhibitions, and frontier dramas of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and looks instead at life behind the scenes. The company could employ hundreds of people at a time, including Native American performers, cowboys, musicians, laborers, and other workers who spent long stretches traveling and living together. Away from the arena, much of life was ordinary: meals, chores, conversation, games, and long hours in the show’s tent village. Ross focuses on one of those unremarkable moments here. The casual game of ping-pong makes the performers feel less like figures in a spectacle and more like what they were: people living their lives together on the road.