The show that had brought us to Prague was Okamžik, by Czech contemporary circus company Cirk La Putyka. The name evokes the fleetingness of time and the sense of wonder to be found in extraordinary everyday moments that pass in the blink of an eye. Created to celebrate the company's fifteenth anniversary, it brings together 35 performers and a live band, celebrating the artistic creations of a community that founder Rostislav Novák Jr, known as Rosťa, has nurtured since 2009. Directed by Finnish circus artist Maksim Komaro, it promised a series of vignettes taking us through the company's journey.
Jane and I had seen Cirk La Putyka at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, where they'd blown me away with their unsettling and darkly humorous Dolls, exploring, through dance and insane circus skills, how puppets and toys can (or can't) become substitutes for human connections. I didn't know then that Rosťa was an eighth-generation puppeteer, but now I do, and when I heard that his parents, renowned puppeteers Anna and Rostislav Novák Sr, were also in Okamžik, I was even more intrigued. I loved the idea of this circus family, spanning generations.
I'd heard about the anniversary show thanks to Charlie Wheeller, a British performer in the cast, whom I'd first seen at that same Edinburgh Fringe in Barely Methodical Troupe's Bromance. He's one of the most exhilarating circus artists I've seen in the UK, blending depth with a sense of fun.
And another name in the cast made my heart leap: Finnish aerialist Ilona Jäntti. Jane and I had first seen her performing among the trees in Highgate Woods back in 2014, turning a simple rope into an extraordinary aerial dance, and had followed her work ever since. She remains one of the most inventive aerialists I've seen, and here she was, not only performing but responsible for the aerial choreography of Okamžik. Another golden thread connecting my circus adventures over the years.
Cirk La Putyka has two rather different homes in Prague: Jatka78, its theatre in a former slaughterhouse in Holešovice, and Azyl78, its beautiful Big Top in the parkland of the Prague Exhibition Grounds, beside Stromovka. It was the latter where we were going to see Okamžik, and I was delighted that my first experience of the company on home turf would be under canvas.
We had so much fun weaving our way through the park at night, towering trees casting long shadows across the broad paths, families out on evening strolls. And then, through the darkness, our first glimpse of the twinkling lights atop the canvas. Such a pretty tent! As it came into full view, I felt that little thrill of anticipation, the magic of approaching Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.
Behind the Canvas
Charlie pointed out Ollin, the lead rigger. He had an easy, relaxed manner that belied the enormous responsibility resting on his shoulders. I'd once spent an afternoon with Welsh company NoFit State learning about rigging and counterweight mechanics, and it had given me a whole new appreciation of the people working above and around the performers, keeping them safe while making the impossible possible. Ollin had that quiet air of someone who knew exactly what he was doing. You felt you were in safe hands.
Charlie introduced us to Jiří Fusek, Executive Producer of Okamžik and newly appointed Executive Director. He gave us such a warm welcome. We got chatting about his background in film production and teaching. He had even taught production at Prague's film school, FAMU. I was fascinated by the crossover between cinema, theatre and circus, and could see how his experience might provide something of a counterbalance to Rosťa's extraordinary creative energy.
It was such a privilege to be there, but I didn't want to intrude or distract.
"Charlie, don't you need to warm up too?"
I knew he'd already done one show that day, but still. He reassured me it was fine, that I'd understand how the opening number did that job. I was intrigued.
He did eventually slip away, and we stayed chatting with Jiří until the audience started arriving and we shunted along to let them in. Soon we found ourselves in the thick of a Czech night out, well off the tourist track. Full house. The buzz was wonderful.
And there was something else I loved. The respectful atmosphere. I hadn't spotted an announcement (turns out there was a gentle reminder at the entrance), but no one had phones out, or brought in food or drinks. There were a fair few kids, impeccably behaved. Everyone had simply come to watch, focused on what was about to happen.
Old Friends and Familiar Ghosts
And then came the performers, in a spectacular array of costumes drawn from shows spanning the company's history. I wished I'd known more, could have recognised the stories behind those costumes. Looking around, I had the sense that many in the audience had followed the company for years, and as the characters paraded round the ring they were greeting old friends and familiar ghosts from the past. There was something old-school about the opening parade, but the surreal bent of the costumes, Ilona's feathered apparition, for instance, which I would later learn was a shuttlecock!, signalled that this was very much New Circus.
I'm glad I knew about Charlie's costume at least. He was wearing the apron of an old Czech tavern keeper, or hospodský, topped with what appeared to be a fez, giving it an Eastern touch. It made me smile, as I'd chosen to wear my Turkish eye talisman, gifted to me by a friend for my milestone birthday, especially for the show. The right call!
Charlie was representing the barman, or hospodský (#amlearning), from La Putyka, the company's very first production. And who had originally played that role? The compère, Jiří Kohout. I loved that theatrical continuity, the past and present circling round together.
La Putyka means pub (again, I'd done some homework!), and I learned later about the significance of pubs under Communism, places where, behind closed doors, people could gather and exchange ideas. That struck a chord with my research on Cuban theatre in the 90s, and the stage as a space of resistance, where apparently innocuous texts could slip past the censor and take on, in performance, a depth and a charge that offered an alternative imagining to the status quo.
I had heard already that Rosťa Senior is also a familiar face to Czech television audiences, playing Luboš Mareček in the long-running soap Ulice. Rosťa Junior has appeared on screen too. I found this crossover fascinating. In Britain, so much of my experience of contemporary circus has been rooted in theatre and the fringe, whereas here I was seeing puppetry, circus, theatre, film and television interwoven within one family. Perhaps the audience were greeting old friends in more ways than one.
Their regal presence commanded our attention in what turned out to be a theatrical sleight of hand. As we followed them into the caravan on stage, I suddenly realised this had given the rest of the cast a moment (not much more!) to slip into a change of clothes, now all muted metallics.
As the caravan spun round to reveal the interior, Rosťa Senior and Anna were already seated. One by one, the whole circus family came on board, shaking hands, greeting one another, until all 35 performers had somehow squeezed in like sardines in a tin. It reminded me of parties we used to have with other sailing families during our two years living aboard La Cigale. Ah, the travelling life!
Then out they tumbled, straight into breakdance. I saw what Charlie meant by a warm-up now! They were all on fire, it was a sheer joy. All sorts of acro followed. My favourite moment was when a three-high rose up from the floor like a ladder being raised. It was so inventive.
What followed was nearly two hours of intense celebration, without an interval to break the energy. It was like strapping in for a rollercoaster ride looping into infinity, and a balance atop a perch signalled we were just getting started. There wasn't a conventional story to follow, and the pleasure was in watching all these different worlds collide, with the company's history and its people providing the thread that held them together.
Anything Can Happen
I loved that the singer had adopted the same costume. I'd heard that the five-piece band, CLPBND, were a show in their own right, and they rocked it from their minstrel's gallery above the ring. I'd been listening to the soundtrack on Spotify for weeks, but watching the music being made was another experience altogether. Every time I tried to follow what the musicians were doing, something onstage stole my attention. There was so much going on! I began to realise I could happily see the whole show again, this time with my eyes on the band, and discover a whole new world.
The constant shifts in tempo and mood, the sheer unpredictability, were half the fun. And I couldn't help thinking that something of Rosťa's character was coming through. He has that edge to him, from what I've read and heard from others. I haven't met him, as he was out of town, but I remember an interview in which he'd described surprising the cast by bringing an audience to the very first rehearsal of a new show. Talk about throwing people in at the deep end!
And then there's the athlete in him. He has a history of pushing himself to extraordinary physical and psychological limits, and I can't help seeing echoes of that in the theatre he envisages. I get the impression he's not someone who would ask others to push themselves without being prepared to go to those lengths himself. But you never quite know where that will lead.
And as if to prove the point, we heard a discordant humming offstage and wondered what on earth was going on. On roared a mini motorbike with a chariot. Ben Hur meets Mad Max, and my mind flicked for a moment to Archaos, that mythically anarchic circus from before my time, reputed to have audience members fainting in the first five minutes. I would dearly have loved to have seen it. I wondered if Rosťa ever had. Or Maksim, the director of this show, for that matter.
The sight of the performers wearing helmets offered at least a nod to health and safety. That reassurance evaporated the moment one of them was hoisted into the air by a cord, spinning at a dizzying speed. Another struck a pose, whipped out a can of graffiti spray and covered her visor in black paint.
Lord, I thought, where are they going with this?
And then Charlie came on with another performer carrying a Ukrainian bar, an apparatus I'd hitherto known as Russian barre. I learned that the change of name was deliberate, out of consideration for Ukrainian members of the company. And dear God, the flyer proceeded to bounce herself up to standing, then launch into a series of flips, backwards and forwards.
I felt my knuckles go white as I watched the focus and concentration on the faces of those men, literally shouldering the responsibility of keeping her safe, registering the micro-adjustments they made each time she landed.
My mind was further boggled when I found out later that Denise Arazimová was the same age as my daughter at university. Incredible.
The clowning took on all sorts of forms too. I was struck by Šárka Říhová, who has 60% Charlie Chaplin in her DNA, according to a teasing Instagram post. A dancer and acrobat by training, she later performed a beautiful, rhythmic ballet routine with a giant bubble that was truly enchanting. Earlier, she'd entered in the opening parade wearing an oversized black nose; now, in her oversized suit, she manipulated the edges of a diaphanous handkerchief with as much comedy as dexterity.
At another point, a couple of doll-like figures in long, curly blond wigs, mismatched high heels and wellington boots hunched their shoulders in a hilarious display of graceful creepiness.
Then a small circular stage was wheeled into the centre, becoming the pupil of the iris on stage. A drummer played and more clowns emerged in trench coats and bowler hats, with a cartoonish vaudeville feel. I'll come back to that. I later learned that this playful, surreal world is characteristic of director Maksim Komaro, who also created Slapstick Sonata with the troupe.
Keep on spinning, don't get old... The mood shifted again with the hauntingly beautiful lyrics framing the act that followed. Words to live by. Although sometimes life on the conveyor belt is dizzyingly relentless.
Playing a "guess the act" game with the Spotify playlist beforehand, I'd pegged this as a Cyr wheel number, but that was another surprise of the evening. Instead, we were treated to a study in controlled wildness from Tomáš Brt, on a Chinese pole that both rotated from a groove in the circular platform and took to the air.
There was something of the lone wolf about Tom. He reminded Jane and me of a climbing friend from university days, and I smiled on learning later that he did indeed come to circus from climbing. His moves had the balletic liquidity of quicksilver as he ducked and weaved round the spinning pole. Mesmerising. I could see him among the trees too (and later would), he seemed such a natural, and the movement of his long, loose hair extended the lines his body made.
I was annoyed with myself afterwards, though, for having taken my eye off the musicians for a minute, as I later discovered that the singer for this piece was Denise from the opening bar number. I mean, again, what a star. Encore!
Spinning, Strings and Shadows
I love watching Cyr, possibly more than any other discipline, for its meditative serenity and dance flow. Traditionally, I've loved its range as well. The way it covers warehouse spaces or outdoor squares in swooping magnificence. So seeing it constrained to such a small surface area, the pupil at the centre of the iris, was a novelty.
I loved the way they rolled the hoops by hand first, so we had a feel for the movement before the performers took to them. As a child I used to spend hours polishing copper coins with Brasso and then spin them when they shone like new, so one thing I do appreciate is the way the momentum of a spinning ring can take on a force of its own, and how it may never spin quite the same way twice. Then the performers stepped into the wheels in turn, like Vitruvian Man. And Woman.
And it was terrifying.
Ever since a huge bike accident in my twenties, when I clipped a kerb at speed and went flying over the handlebars, proximity to edges has scared me. Watching this act, my stomach lurched the way it does when I see roller-skaters spinning in neck hangs on such a platform. And yet it was intensely beautiful. The kilt-like culottes the men wore curved with grace, and the woman deftly leapt into the arms of one, clinging in an embrace as they spun round together. I held my breath, and defied my eyes to blink. And when the three became one at the climax, well, it just felt like she was a pearl in a clam, tenderly protected.
How could you not be hooked? Or wired...
The tightwire scene that came next had a beautiful doubling, with the tightwire walker contrasted with a shadow self, Ilona as a sideways aerial ninja. It made me think somehow of the dark world of comics. When the two performers reached towards one another with outstretched hands, I could almost imagine the thought-bubble narration.
Then came the denouement. Ilona slipped away and the tightwire performer tossed her sash, letting her skirt fall loose. As she crossed the wire in the shadows, fans sent a confetti of rose petals rising around her.
A clever comic interlude allowed the petals to be swept up, and the meditation segued into a forest of ropes. Ilona Jäntti was once again among the trees, in her element, alongside half a dozen performers. Bright flashes of red in some of their costumes recalled rose petals, each artist absorbed in weaving a poetic, solitary study that picked up the thread of Tom's earlier Chinese pole.
We were back in Highgate Woods again, yet also inside a more wondrous dreamscape where the hanging ropes became looped, in turn, into cloud swings, lifting performers from the ground by their waists in spinning turns.
This mood extended into the following act, with the return of juggler Filip Zahradnický, who'd earlier performed a masterful seven-ball cascade (I'm not very technical, but I counted seven balls anyway!). Now he was balanced atop a globe, holding two giant balls as though bubbles of joy (or alcohol) had come to life, while a girl in red and black circled him on another globe. I loved the contrast between his extraordinary stillness and her constant movement, the two of them somehow in perfect harmony.
I'd only ever tried one with the additional stability of a crash mat underneath. It was fun initially, those little penguin steps that keep it moving, so responsive. But when I tried it on the floor without, in two seconds flat it shot from under my feet and my shoulder popped out in the fall. I popped it back in again, but still. So I don't underestimate the expertise with which these performers take to the globe with such apparent ease, never mind the multitasking that Filip had been doing on top of it.
I loved how the barman took his turn centre stage on the ball, shrugging off his waistcoat and throwing it to the drunk at the bar, who had been a quiet presence throughout, spinning in lackadaisical mimicry on his bar stool.
A girl took a running jump and the barman caught her in his arms, another great embrace. As with the Cyr wheel, there isn't quite an English word that conveys the intimacy of that hug (or was it clinging on for dear life?!). It's what the Welsh call a cwtch. Only then she proceeded to move onto his shoulders and soon was standing in a two-high.
Once it was over I thought I could breathe again, only Cirk La Putyka's dark sense of humour took it up a notch.
Suddenly the spinning drunk at the bar, a hilarious Jiří Weissmann, mimed that it was his go to be carried on the ball. You could see the growing horror in the barman's face watching him rev up, take a running leap and... in perfect timing barrel over the ball while the barman leaped up and neatly landed again on top of it.
Not to be put off, our "drunk" had another go and ended up sitting, swinging his legs for a moment in celebration. I wondered if this everyman wasn't us, the audience. Intoxicated by the show, wanting our turn in the limelight too.
Maybe that thought only occurs now in retrospect, given what happened next...
The Tables Are Turned
We'd seen him earlier, propping up the bar. Not at it, but in it, a sliding door revealing him in a glass box, passing his glass up through a hole to be refilled. A gin bar! No more pivo. La Putyka had modernised. Is that saying something about Prague now?!
Half a dozen male performers processed in wearing giant gold metallic nappies and carrying ice buckets. As they ceremoniously upended them onto the table, out came mountains of shards of glass. You knew what was coming next.
The bearded lady shed her veil and Ethan hammed it up for the audience, savouring the collective gasp as we thought he was about to take a giant leap. The comedy of relief as it was simply a crouch was short-lived, as he then jumped for real.
Three times.
He teased, he revelled in it, he literally lay down and rolled in it. He was the consummate showman, channelling all the humbug served up by his countryman Barnum with gusto and panache.
So when I saw performers threading through the crowds picking people out I thought, here we are again. Both relieved and, if I'm honest, though I never admitted it to myself until later, slightly disappointed to be safely ensconced in the middle of a row, inaccessible.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Charlie, picking his way through the row behind. Only he kept going until he was level with me and held out his hand. He was wearing a bright blue jacket, loose gold-patterned trousers and a jaunty cap. There was something vaguely nautical about the look, I thought. Ahoj, after all, is Czech for hello. It was a beautiful gesture, and with his typical kindness he kept me distracted from my nerves with conversation, the way you'd soothe a nervous animal. "If you could choose a costume, which one would it be?" he asked. The lampshade outfit for me. Charlie's was the Toonish bowler hats, which led us onto cartoons, weasels and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
I don't know what made me happier, the joy of stepping onto stage or the opportunity to tell Charlie in real time how amazing I thought the show was. It was surreal. And then, there was the dance. A couple of steps. Grapevine, step together, slide, slide. Simple really, until forward and back were brought into play and I lost my bearings. It didn't matter though. It was the dance of life, in the best of company all around, and I wished the whole world could have that experience. Little by little, I found myself again. But I still could have used a gin. Were the drinks at the bar real, I wondered, as we paused for a moment to prop ourselves up, and I could see Jiří across from there, beaming.
And then I was back in the audience again.
The knowledge that Charlie had done the same for his Mum made me feel like part of the family, while I remembered the first time I was ever pulled on stage, aged around eight or nine, by my brother in drag as an Ugly Stepsister at a Christmas panto. Hand in hand we duetted "Daisy, Daisy".
Here's to Bromance, encore!
One Last Leap
Somehow that had felt like an intermission without breaking the spell, and we were back to the heart of Okamžik with Rosťa Senior and Anna, a puppet, and a poem being delivered.
I wondered if it might be the powerful poem I knew closed the original La Putyka. I couldn't follow every word, but the physical language spoke to the brokenness of the human condition, as the performer indicated an empty pocket at one point, and hung limp at another. The invisible strings being pulled by the wheel of fortune.
And then the energy ramped up a notch. First a thrilling duet by two performers gracing the aerial straps, then out came the teeterboards, the human springing seesaws. Three of them, though I lost count of the performers involved. The last time I had seen Charlie on teeterboard was in Kin, and here relations had further expanded. It was insane, the precision, the trust, the adrenaline and the sheer joy of the airborne somersaults and flips. In any other show that would have made a gratifying finale.
But then out came the Ukrainian cradle, where performers were catapulted from a standing swing into a giant vertical net, plastered against it at velocity in cartoonish delight. I noticed Ollin, ever vigilant, fly down the stairs beside us and check the ropes. An act of high risk, where nothing is left to chance. Charlie was the last to soar, only instead of sliding down the net like the others, he proceeded to carry on climbing up, still higher, like Spiderman. At the top there was a strap that he looped around his wrist as he swooped down, bringing the net down with him.
As the whole cast came on stage, the audience rose straight to its feet in a standing ovation. A spectacular evening, and what a privilege to be there.
But it wasn't quite over.
The audience was instantly quiet again, without a murmur, as Jiří Kohout came back on and delivered an impassioned speech about, as I understood it, the independence of television and the arts. I wish I could tell you precisely what was said. It clearly struck a chord. Another ovation.
What could I take away from all this, other than the memories? It was interesting how uncommercial the set-up was. I really liked that. The only merchandise I'd noticed was Okamžik on vinyl. Just the soundtrack. I'd been listening to it on Spotify ever since booking the trip, but there's something about vinyl, isn't there? The ritual of putting a record on, the artwork, the physicality of it. Music you can hold in your hands. That is very special.
Ah, there was so much going on in the show, so many details I've surely missed, even with my eyes wide open as much as possible. When I did blink, though, it was with wonder.
Děkuju. Sincere thanks to all for such a special evening. Gone in a flash.
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