Chapter 274: Okamžik: In the Blink of an Eye with Cirk La Putyka

All photographs by Lukáš Bíba, courtesy of Cirk La Putyka

Could Prague get any more magical or surreal? We'd been up since 3.30am, flown in with Jane, one of my oldest, funniest friends, to possibly the most romantic city in the world, drunk in the sunshine (and the red wine!) in the square, watched the sunset on Charles Bridge and found our inner children playing blinking games with a young Czech boy on a tram. And all that had been the warm-up act for a night at the circus.

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 met us and took us inside. It felt like stepping into the inner sanctum, another world where performers were stretching out and the band was tuning up. Everything felt so natural and familiar. I was a long way from home, but it didn't feel like it.

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

It was showtime. Down the steps came Jiří Kohout, a well-known Czech actor and founding member of Cirk La Putyka, as compère. A mysterious, incredibly charismatic figure with a handlebar moustache, he carried incense and intoned what sounded like a poetic invocation, promising to conjure up the spectacular. I imagined. A fortnight of Duolingo only gets me so far...

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.

A huge cheer went up for Rosťa's parents, Rostislav Novák Senior and Anna, as they appeared. Circus royalty, judging by the reception. We were in the presence of living legends, it was palpable. What an honour it was going to be to see them in action.

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

In the opening number, "Love Will Be Our Remedy", I found traces of Dolls in the lyrics. Love, that connection and flow of energy, is the only antidote to a mannequin existence. The song accompanied an aerial hoop number choreographed by Ilona. The porcelain-white costumes, designed by Kristina Záveská, and the symmetry of the four aerialists also brought to mind the replicants in Blade Runner. The shimmering silver fabric, caught in Juho Rahijärvi's atmospheric lighting, gave them an otherworldly hue which, together with the spiky, sun-like headdresses, lent a kaleidoscopic quality to the masquerade and the mystery of the choreography.

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

Then we came to the Cyr wheel number. I had been looking forward to seeing a duet on Cyr and mentioned that to Charlie earlier. He smiled. "Actually, it turns into a trio." I shouldn't have been surprised. There is a symmetry in two that a third disrupts (as I found as a mother of three!) and it made sense that in this environment they would once again be pushing out the boundaries.

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.

From one kind of magic to another. Rosťa Senior and Anna brought us more sleight of hand, quite literally. One of the highlights of the evening for me was their puppetry, in a wonderfully surreal talent contest in which a director-like figure, played by Adam Joura, appeared to be auditioning acts. I'd heard that Rosťa himself often played the role, and wondered how much affectionate parody was going on here. A pratfall, a backflip, and then their ostrich, the last act.

I loved watching the musicians focus, pacing their strumming to match the bird's steps. Then the delight as, by sleight of hand (or string!), it laid an egg from which hatched a snake charmer who proceeded to hypnotise the audience, as the iris of lights cast on the stage turned into mesmerising circles.

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. 

The globe though. That terrifies me too.

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

Four audience members, all women, were plucked from the crowd, led to a table and handed a glass of gin on the rocks each. Clearly they would need to be fortified for what came next. Carried in on a dais was the sideshow turn, a veiled bearded lady. Beneath the theatrical disguise, the tattooed torso belonged to renowned US artist Ethan Law, known for his Cyr wheel.

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.

Cirk La Putyka are very good at making the audience feel part of the interactions. Throughout, the MC had been addressing people, sitting down next to them, shining the spotlight.

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

Onto the final act.

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.

 

Chapter 273: Prague: The Warm-Up Act

"Do you mind if I take the bed by the window?" Jane asked. I didn't mind at all. I already had my eye on the bed with a Tasmanian Devil bedside light whose eyes glowed when switched on. Don't we all work that way?!

I had chosen the hotel purely for its proximity to Cirk La Putyka, and then for the name. "Mama Shelter". I miss Mum. It promised refuge. I liked that. And there was something theatrical sounding about it too, conjuring up musical notes of Chicago, Gypsy, and, well, Tangled! Mama knows best... But still, nothing prepared me for the actual set. It was so much fun. From the relaxed welcome of the low-key guys on reception, to the neon lights, the colourful mobiles of foam shapes and letters above the bar, the painted frames on mirrors everywhere inviting selfies and declaring "Mama loves you". It is a space that simply invites your inner child to come out to play, which is what is at the heart of circus. 

I've had a couple of weeks on Duolingo now. Enough to recognise the odd word and show off the odd set phrase to a long-suffering Jane. "Ta hruška je stará, ale dobrá", I inform her as I take a bite of her battered old (but good!) pear from the plane and the juice drips down. Jane informs me that my conversation revolves around 90% circus, 5% death and 5% food... I'm quite happy with that ratio, but I do appreciate it's a miracle already she is still talking to me. 

Despite the fact that we'd been up since 3.30am, and I'd yet to have a coffee (Jane hadn’t really either - that Costa cappuccino she had courtesy of EasyJet really didn’t count!) we decided to hit the town immediately. We grabbed a paper map and directions from the girl at reception, but somehow completely missed the tram stop just round the corner and set off on foot in entirely the wrong direction.

"No, Lucy, we are not doing Lime bikes."

"Ale Jane, to kolo je banán..."

It doesn't make sense, but I like to think that conveys the idea that Lime bikes are crazy fun. Jane points out I have a death wish and she rather likes her life. Still, even if there aren't really the rollercoaster climbs that you get in Lisbon, a tram has something of the fun of the fair about it too, so we eventually found one that seemed to be going in the right direction.

We ended up in the town square, at the last (poslední, another great word!) table in the sunshine, with goulash and dumplings, a glass of red wine, drinking it all in. There was something so serene about it all. Everyone around us at ease, no loud voices, it was all so civilised, so continental, so grounding. I could hear my father sigh contentedly "This is the life!", as he used to do on holiday or over a cigar in the garden, and we relished every moment of it. We didn't have to rush anywhere, and were free to simply go with the flow. We meandered through the old town, striking the odd silly pose, but mostly caught up in the romance of it all, marvelling at the pastel shades of chocolate-box buildings, and keeping an eye out for little details of wonder. 

Okamžik means "in the blink of an eye" and somehow it felt like the city itself was the warm-up act. The astronomical clock marking each moment with theatrical panache, the red umbrellas of the tour guides, vintage cars, lions wrapped round statuesque thighs, the video of a giant blinking eye (how very Okamžik, encore!), sunset on Charles bridge, a gull bobbing on the patriarch's head surveying the tide of tourists flooding past. And even in the midst of all the hubbub it felt like we were in our own little bubble, floating on through. 

The afternoon went by in a flash of wonder and, cutting it fine, soon it was time to hop on a tram home. It only took a couple of stops for Jane to agree we were going in the wrong direction, and we jumped off. I'm glad we had that detour because, on the next tram we caught, a young boy of about six or seven (!) climbed on with his grandmother and sat opposite. I caught his eye, he blinked enthusiastically at me, and Jane, almost as though he couldn’t believe we were real, and soon it was a game, batting back and forth between us, with his indulgent grandmother watching over, clearly wryly amused if not joining in. Child's play. There was something refreshing about not having the language to do anything other than speak through the eyes. He did have two words for us at the end, a cheery "Bye bye!" in English, as he hopped off with a wave. He was clearly chuffed with himself. His moment, and for us, a little Prague blessing on the evening ahead.

We made it back to the hotel with enough time for a 15-minute power nap and a cup of coffee. Jane had grabbed a kettle from reception on the way up and magicked up a rainbow of sachets of adaptogenic coffees to choose from. Could I love this woman any more?! Obviously I went for the lion's mane. It's meant to tame racing minds, and now it was time to focus. I spritzed a touch of Gypsy damask over my signature Pomegranate Noir. Everything's coming up smelling of roses. Next stop Big Top...

Chapter 272: Prelude to Prague: The Masked Lion Tamer

 

Some twenty years ago I saw Punchdrunk's The Masque of the Red Death and their extraordinary takeover of Battersea Arts Centre. The world they created in that gothic mansion was unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

I will never forget queueing up outside with my friend Linda. We were each handed a Traitors-style cloak and a beaked plague mask to don, with instructions that from now on no speaking was allowed. As we walked through a velvet-curtained corridor carpeted with dry ice, my stomach dropped and my knees buckled at the prospect of stepping into the void. I turned, mortified, and confessed: "Linda, I feel sick. I just can't do this." Without missing a beat, Linda turned around and, as we cut through the waves, announced to the creepy sea of masks behind, "Excuse me please, lady with a baby coming through!" I was ten weeks pregnant with my first at the time, and while I guess the mask hid both my face and my blushes, those words somehow further saved face. The sweet usherette took me by the hand and said, "Don't worry, the same thing happened to my Mum when she saw the show. I'll escort you to the cabaret at the centre. Follow me."

We did have a ball, and maybe it was the mesmerist act, but after an hour or so there I felt the nausea pass, my courage return and we were able to explore all sorts of hidden spaces.

Three children later, in 2014, my husband and I went with friends to an immersive experience in the Docklands, the Spectators' Guild Restoration tragedy Venice Preserv'd. Masked again, this time with a mask of my own (pictured), in anarchic, festival spirit I was singled out as Queen of the Carnival, given a sash to wear and ceremoniously dumped in a wheelbarrow, weaved through the crowd and delivered up to the Doge, on stage, where I was invited to spin the wheel of fortune and pay my respects to the Republic. Or not.

Then, after the frivolity, the tempo switched and, with the audience now drawn in, we became spectators once again, helpless bystanders watching the tragedy unfold.

My husband also attracted his fair share of attention at these events, and we had such fun over the years at Secret Cinema. In fact, the first one I went to was Casablanca, with my nieces, one of whom, Fly, had worked on the set design of Punchdrunk's Masque.

I think in many ways the attraction to all these immersive experiences was that they acted as a safety valve. That is the function of carnival after all. To release all the pressure of day to day living within a safe space to play, perform, try out other identities, and then knuckle back down to the hard graft of day to day living. It helped us navigate the transition from life as a jet-setting couple, to settling down to the rhythm, and massive responsibilities, of family life. 

Little did we know that our greatest adventure was still ahead of us: two years sailing as a family aboard La Cigale (www.sailinglacigale.com) wherever the wind would take us. And those lessons in improv, immersive experiences and rehearsals in stepping into the unknown stood us in good stead.

Why does all this come to mind now?

Because I'm just back from Prague, from seeing Cirk La Putyka's Okamžik  having been immersed in another world for 48 hours, and Fly came to stay with me a couple of nights before I left. We were talking about those days and all things theatre and circus. She is still working with Punchdrunk's director Felix Barrett having recently taken Paranormal Activity to Broadway, so theatre ghosts were something of a touchstone for our conversation (see also her set design in Tao of Glass - Chapter 243).

Fly grew up with me at home, and we are all still reeling from losing Mum in January. When the second parent goes, it feels like being on a conveyor belt, only now you're next in line to drop off the end. Even me, the youngest of six. So I feel the need for a circuit breaker, to do something completely outside the ordinary, to break that reckoning, beckoning, inexorable pull. My acupuncturist had observed that it was as though my spirit was detaching from my body. I needed to reground, regroup, reconnect.

Okamžik came onto my radar this summer thanks to Charlie Wheeller. At the time I was broke. I'd just left my steady teaching job, had no idea was on the horizon and it certainly wasn't a trip abroad. But somehow chatting to Charlie about the show, hearing how special it was, a milestone celebration of Cirk La Putyka's journey, featuring 35 performers, live music and celebrating the extraordinary talent and vision that has shaped the company since it was founded by Rostislav Novák Jr (Rosťa) in 2009, well, it sowed a seed. It brought back memories of seeing Cirk La Putyka's Dolls at the Edinburgh Fringe, the same year as seeing Charlie for the first time in Barely Methodical Troupe's Bromance. That, and Charlie's supportive words about my writing. He gets its purpose and intention. I witness, make connections, share the love on.

Around that time, this August, my writing on the prophetic power of the arts in the eco-promenade Water Silhouettes (Chapter 252) struck a chord with its director Ximena Cañas, and she made her own reel about my blog, spliced with footage from the performance, which blew me away, talking about how I write about circus from all over Europe. Well, it felt like the universe throwing down the gauntlet. There was magic in the air, and, as Paulo Coelho writes in The Alchemist "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." People contacted me out of the blue with offers of freelance work. My husband had some good news. It was all coming together. 

Then my university friend Jane rang, out of the blue.

"Fancy a trip to Paris for my birthday in November?" she said. "I have Eurostar points, I can take you."

"How about we go to Prague first?" I counter-offered, half jokingly, because Jane's calendar is never anything less than full to overflowing. However, the weekend in question she was free. And she had been there at the Edinburgh Fringe and had seen Bromance and Dolls then too. Jane was living in Glasgow at the time, nipped over for the day, but there was so much to see I'd smuggled her into my hotel room. The same hotel where my great-grandmother had once been a hostess. 

The universe was having a laugh, and I knew we would too. 

The comedy began on Saturday at 4am when we almost left without my phone, which had our boarding passes on. The catch had gone on the inner door, so I was locked out and had to bang on the glass to get back in, waking the whole house up. All two of them. My husband was understandably not amused. My daughter was delighted. One last hug Mum. It was more than a hug though. It was a cwtch.  That Welsh word my Qi Gong partner once had taught me at the end of our sessions. Safety, warmth, family, home.

And I was leaving that behind? At the airport a text popped up out of the blue from a friend, James, who had been our family photographer years ago. He knows how much I love circus (who doesn't?!) and had come across a fin-de-siècle poster of a mysterious female lion tamer known only as Countess X, La Dompteuse Masquée. James had recently acquired a Cirque d'Hiver reproduction and loved it so much he was getting some high-res reproductions made. Would I be interested? The moment I saw the image, it called to me. Of course I was. It's a sign! 

It felt strangely in tune with the zeitgeist of the week, coming on the back of Ben Duke's Lion King The Last Hamlet (see previous couple of posts). Hannah Shepherd's performance had resonated and enthralled on so many levels. If only Ophelia at the end had a whip, not a gun (spoiler alert?!). And it reminded me of the lion tamer's act in the clowning workshop with Ira Seidenstein's protegé Butzi (see Chapter 134 on the Gift of Clowning). There is a time to wear masks, and there is a time to drop them and bring out the real clown. Step out of my comfort zone. Be a little braver.

And there's something about wearing a mask that focuses attention on the eyes. Okamžik, after all, means in the blink of an eye. Those little everyday moments of wonder for which you need to keep your eyes peeled. Blink and you miss it. Though sometimes I have to blink twice, just to believe it.

In no time at all we were on the plane. Jane got out her book on Discovering the Clown by Christopher Hayes. I got out my satin eye mask to give my inner eyes some space to dream. 

Eyes wide shut. We took off.

Chapter 271: Behind the Scenes of The Last Hamlet

Following on from my previous post about Lost Dog's genius The Last Hamlet at Sadler's Wells East, here's a summary of the post-show discussion for those who couldn't make it. I only caught it by chance myself, and have done my best to capture the gist, working against the clock at the mo.

After the performance on 5 November, Rob Jones, Associate Artistic Director of Sadler's Wells, hosted a Q&A with Ben Duke, Hannah Shepherd, Miguel Altunaga and musician Anna B Savage, with BSL interpretation by Erin Hutching.

Spoiler alert: There are some substantial spoilers ahead, including discussion of the ending. I'd recommend seeing the show first if you can.

Rob began with a few questions of his own to get the ball rolling, including the obvious one: Why Hamlet?

Ben explained that a couple of years ago he'd started seeing Hamlet everywhere. He was also having something of a midlife moment, wondering about his place on stage. He quoted Withnail and I: "There comes a time in every man's life when he realises he will never play the Dane." He felt he'd passed that milestone himself. But then again, if he created his own production, why shouldn't he play Hamlet?! "I sound like a total egomaniac," he joked. But of course he didn't. Ben Duke may have hit the genetic jackpot in the talent stakes, but he works at it too. Still, he said there was a mixture of ego, midlife reflection and curiosity about why this particular character seemed to be everywhere. Isn't that the frequency illusion at work, I wondered. A bit like seeing circus everywhere, right?!

As for how the production evolved, Ben described a rather chaotic process of going back to Shakespeare's text, realising how little he actually knew it (he got a first in English Lit, so his "not knowing" is clearly relative) and gathering brilliant people around him to experiment. That reminded me of Lydia Harper saying something similar (Chapter 268). It's a strange play, he reflected, about inaction, in which not much happens, yet it's become one of the most famous works in literature.

They began writing, reading and messing around with ideas. Some elements from an early week of development, about a year ago, survived into the finished production, including Anna's song towards the end. Ben subsequently rang her to ask whether she'd come and perform it live.

Miguel confirmed the chaos. Working with Ben was constantly playful, and they were still discovering things in the production, exploring how much power, effort or delicacy each scene needed. Sometimes scenes worked brilliantly in isolation but not in the context of the whole show, so they had to be sacrificed. Only to reappear later.

For instance, Ben revealed that Miguel's singing in the final scene had only been reinstated the previous night, for performance number twenty. Anyone who'd seen the show earlier wouldn't have seen it.Miguel described days when nothing seemed to happen, everyone experimenting in different corners of the rehearsal room, trying out movements or texts. The important thing was to remain open to those moments too.

And then Ben passed the mic to Anna: "Well I feel like I've won a competition to be here." She described being inspired by this extraordinary new world, joking that music was held together with "Pritt Stick and hope". I loved that! Everything happening around her seemed so impressive. "I feel so lucky to be so up close to so many incredibly talented people. It's just magical."

That struck a chord. It's one of the reasons I write this blog. I see inspiring performances, meet extraordinary people, and somehow some of that energy passes through. It lifts me up. And perhaps by writing about it, I can pass a little of that energy on.

Rob then asked Ben something I was particularly interested in, given the way he combines literary, theatrical and choreographic talents. How did he know when to introduce the dance, working with Shakespeare's text as well as his own writing?

Ben replied that it was an endlessly fascinating and problematic question, one that lies at the heart of his creative process. He starts with stories and words. In the past, he'd wait until the narrative was clear before creating the choreography, but the problem was that this tended to happen about a day before they were due on stage, and dance takes longer to make. Now they begin creating movement earlier, even if they're not yet sure where it belongs. One duet, for example, had initially been developed with quite a different atmosphere before finding its place in the show.

I really liked how he talked about the instinct to move from words into something more emotional and physical, of "falling into movement". And then the question he asks himself: "When is the moment to stop talking and start moving?" That made me smile. One of the themes of the play is how to get Hamlet to just stop talking...

Then came the audience questions.

The first concerned the ending. Had they always intended for Hamlet to end up in a box?

Not exactly. Ben had been interested in shifting the revenge narrative towards Ophelia, so that she became the one facing the decision of whether to kill Hamlet. But then, if she did, would that make her as bad as him? They tried various possibilities. The idea of boxes came quite early, including a sort of magic trick in which Hamlet would disappear among them as they were shuffled around, until nobody knew where he was. Just another soft toy in a box. I imagined they would need a trapdoor underneath, Columbo-style (I'd just watched the episode with Billy Connolly as a magician at my sister's, for auld lang syne!). I digress. Sorry. At one stage Hamlet continued talking from inside the box, but that didn't feel right.

"Shut up, just shut up! Enough." And so the idea of silencing him took shape.

Another audience member asked about the extraordinary set design. This was my question, I thought, having just had my set-designing niece staying over, whose work has been an eye-opener for me over the years. Only this audience member took it one step further, observing how the boxes work as a literal representation of the compartmentalisation of Hamlet's mind. I was relieved I hadn't put up my hand.

Ben immediately credited the brilliant Soutra Gilmour, the set designer. They'd initially talked about walls. The fourth wall, the Berlin Wall, all the important walls they could think of. I wondered also if the wall on the Mexican-US border came to mind at one point (see show!). I also thought of Dad again. How he'd brought me back a piece of the Berlin Wall when it collapsed. Where did it go? And then Soutra suggested boxes. Suddenly the ideas came flooding in. Hamlet's compartmentalised mind, his emotional baggage, the weight of history he carries around with him.

They considered making the structures more solid, but cardboard boxes worked so well in rehearsal that they stayed. And it turns out Ben had been moving house that summer, with his own life packed into boxes. I don't want to say more here for fear of further spoilers, but the play and innovation with those boxes is again, well, just genius. And I loved that once again Ben emphasised the importance of collaborators who take an idea and offer something that pushes it further.

Next came a question about theatre director Katie Mitchell, whose BBC interview arguing that we should stop staging Hamlet is such an integral part of the production. Had she been invited to see it?

Yes, they'd written to her, although Ben admitted to being rather nervous about what she might think.

Soutra had sent him the interview, and he'd been struck by the sheer directness of Mitchell's argument. She dispenses with Hamlet in one fell swoop and is utterly unapologetic about it. It was like doing away with the Mona Lisa of literature and putting something else in its place. So radical, something heroic about that. And it gave Ben a way into the work. If he was Hamlet, and this was a personal attack, how would he respond? "I'm not sure whether we rebutted it successfully." I beg to differ.

Then came the tongue-in-cheek one:

"How hard was it to acknowledge where Shakespeare got the idea from and bring in The Lion King into this?" Ben laughed about ordering a "very flammable Simba costume" from Amazon early in the process. The connection had seemed ridiculous, but then The Lion King, like Hamlet, is everywhere. Even if people don't know Shakespeare's play, they probably know the Disney version. And the costume also seemed to capture something of Hamlet's arrested development and childishness. So they decided to riff on the idea and see how far it could go.

Another audience member said that seeing Lost Dog's Ruination a couple of years ago had changed their life. God, I haven't heard of that one, I thought with a pang. They'd noticed how Ben's work explored human beings as complicated, morally ambiguous creatures, rather than simply heroes and villains.

Ben agreed this was a recurring preoccupation. In Ruination, for example, Hannah had played Medea, traditionally seen as a monstrous figure, but who decides whether someone is good or bad? Shakespeare, he argued, is extraordinary at portraying complexity, where "darkness and humour sit together". Well, you nailed that here, I thought.

He even questioned whether we are unified individuals at all.

"We are just all multiple. We are so many people." Someone might be a hero one moment and an "absolute arsehole" the next. It makes it very difficult to condemn or glorify people, and that complexity fascinates him. I also love the lack of judgement implicit in that. It speaks volumes instead about an artist's curiosity and openness.

With the clock ticking, and Rob doing a great job of timekeeping, the penultimate question concerned BSL interpretation and how it had been incorporated into the movement and technical work. This was again something I would have asked. Ben's answer was refreshingly candid. Late. Very late.

They've worked with Clare many times, and he gave a great shout-out to her extraordinary preparation and commitment. Yet the actual integration of her signing into the stage action had come together in a rush that very afternoon. I couldn't believe the time frame.

It had been abundantly clear in the show that there had been discussions about how to bring her into the space, rather than leave her stranded in a corner, and make her part of the action. But his goal was for this to go further, if only time and money allowed.

Finally, an audience member asked about the audience participation. This was the point when I thought, clowning, hey presto! They admitted to having initially thought, "Oh here we go!" when it was announced, but had found it worked beautifully. Ben explained that the idea had come early, although he'd temporarily lost his nerve before returning to it. Part of the thinking was about Hamlet's extraordinary relationship with the audience. He keeps talking to us, creating an unusual intimacy, a conversation across the fourth wall. Ben wanted to explore how to recreate that. And then there was the practical question of giving all those soft toys voices. Why not get the audience to do it? "You pay for a ticket and then you have to do the acting." What can I say? In a world of budget cuts and tortuous Arts Council applications... Genius! Encore ;) 

Right, now to pack for Prague and Cirk La Putyka. I can't believe it's already 3pm. In twelve hours I'll be getting up to head to the airport. The circus is calling. Come follow the band.

Chapter 270: Remember, remember... Lost Dog's Last Hamlet

Remember, Remember the fifth of November...

Only I clean forgot. Maybe that's turning 50 for you. Or simply the prospect of back-to-back late nights teaching, a surprise house guest and a trip to Prague coming up this weekend. On Sunday night, contemplating the week ahead, I'd mentally pegged Thursday for the one early night, until a reminder from Carolyn popped up. "Really looking forward to Thursday night, Luce..."

And then I remembered. Doh! How could I forget?!

I'd booked to see Ben Duke's The Last Hamlet at Sadler's Wells East. From Rufus, the slipper thief of my previous post, to Lost Dog's Great Dane, there seems to be something of a canine theme developing here. Although, as it turns out, this particular dog is more of a big cat...

The last time I saw Ben Duke on stage was well over a decade ago in Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) at Battersea Arts Centre. A one-man show, and it was mesmerising. I hung on every word. There was magic in that heady combination of the language, concept and physical movement.

I had gone thanks to another circus-loving Lucy, Ribchester, whose book The Hourglass Factory opens with a suffragette swinging on a trapeze, and who had also written numerous circus reviews for The Herald up in Edinburgh. This had been our night "off" circus, only to find Ben ascending a rope at one point and doing a spot of invisible juggling at another. There is no escape, we joked.

It was that summer I saw Barely Methodical Troupe's Bromance and Cirk La Putyka's surreal Dolls, both up at the Fringe. Ben Duke subsequently directed BMT's Kin, and now BMT's Charlie Wheeller is appearing in Cirk La Putyka's anniversary show Okamžik, which I'm heading to Prague tomorrow to see. Funny how these threads keep coming together.

Having seen The Last Hamlet, words fail me. It was bonkersly brilliant, but part of its five-star magic lies in its unpredictability, and it would be sacrilege to spoil that. The set design by Soutra Gilmour was ingenious. "Thinking outside the box" maybe not quite the right expression here. Or perhaps it is. You'll have to see for yourself. The Q&A in my next post will offer some insights into the creative process, although that's probably best read after seeing the show. What I will share here is the impact it's already made, and the premise, which is simple: Hamlet is going to be staged for one last time, and soft toys play the other characters.

As we took our seats, a radio on stage played Kylie Minogue's "I Should Be So Lucky". Well, we'd hit the jackpot. And it took us back, like a tape spooling time in reverse. Whatever disasters are going on in our lives, Carolyn and I always seem to bring out each other's inner child. I promptly knocked over my glass of water everywhere. Muppet. I looked round at the audience behind us, partly in embarrassment, partly out of curiosity. A performer a couple of rows back who I recognised from the very first show I'd seen at that Edinburgh Fringe. A few others had that National Circus student vibe. An alert, engaged audience, as showed in the Q&A after. 

Thursday had been the only possible night to go, but in a happy coincidence it was also the one with a post-show discussion and BSL interpretation. After seeing deaf actor Olivia Burton-Laws make her professional debut in The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal, I'd been particularly looking forward to the BSL interpretation. I loved the way Ben welcomed Clare's signing into the centre of the performance, making it part of the choreography, particularly given how little time they'd had to integrate it, as we learnt in the Q&A.

I expected to laugh, given the absurdity of the premise, but not to the point where I feared I wouldn't be able to stop, only for Hamlet to pull the rug from underneath us and my stomach to drop like a dead weight. And Anna B Savage's singing. Spellbinding. Another reason to see this show.

I did not expect to well up thinking about Hamlet's reaction to news of his father's death. I had been abroad, at the end of the phone, when my own father died. The same moon shining over the port of Tarifa would have been watching over him in Hampshire, I had reflected. A lunatic thought? Another moment later on was also a grave trigger. All I will say to that is bloody hell, and thank you Hannah Shepherd, your Ophelia nailed it. And Miguel Altunaga, wow, escalofríos ¡aché! Anyone reading this, you have to see them in action.

But somehow watching the performance shifted a weight that's been hanging over me recently, in this season when the veil thins. An existential crisis isn't madness. Sometimes it's just a cloud of grief passing over. If only Hamlet had known that and sat with it a little more. I want to sit with this performance a little longer, too. It had hallucinogenic qualities, like theatrical LSD. We emerged in an altered state (!) marvelling at the world around us, its luminosity.

Leaving the theatre, Carolyn and I waited ages inside for the electronic rotating poster to cycle through the year's productions and come back to The Last Hamlet, so we could snap our moment for posterity, then again when we discovered one outside too, collapsing in giggles at the ridiculousness of our fangirling. We then registered that we hadn't heard a single firework as we passed a Chihuly-inspired (or created?) glass flower in the meadow, glowing with urban embers. We soaked up the towering architecture and the magnificance of the metropolis, feeling like Alice in Wonderland. Approaching the escalator down to Stratford station, we spotted triffid-like sculptures blinking at us (Okamžik means in an instant, or in a blink of an eye) and ended up going backwards down the escalator taking selfie videos to capture them in the background for the hell of it. The precariousness of our descent set us off, exploding in laughter, all over again. 

You can't take us anywhere.

But thankfully Hamlet did.

Cheers. Encore.

Photo credit: Christophe Raynaud de Lage from https://theaterscene.com

Chapter 269: LEAP Circus' Damaged Glory

LEAP Circus has a new project in development called Damaged Glory and I went along to a studio at the Roundhouse on Friday more than a little curious. It was a sunny afternoon and so I hopped out of the tube a stop early to stroll through Camden, so full of colour and quirks. It never changes. Colourful buildings with papier-mâché signage, and the punks sitting on the lock bridge, careless legs swinging over the wall, while keeping a sharp weather eye out to charge tourists for photos. Like some tableau vivant throwback to the 80s. Punters pay for the authenticity of the performance, a contradiction in terms perhaps, but it adds colour, and I think there's something of a damaged glory about those spikes, in hair, studs and demeanour. I love people watching.

Onto the Roundhouse, not edgy (no corners anyway), and as I walk up I bump into a circus friend, also en route. "Like the new hair, Lu," he says. In that comment I feel like circus Lucy is back. A new era. I'd chopped it all off the day before and consequently until then had felt rather vulnerable, ambivalent. "Tell that to my husband!" I joke. Well, it's not sooo short this time, and he is still talking to me. The last time was in Tahiti, you see, on our mega sailing trip. A visit to an expat French hairdresser had resulted in a gamine pixie crop, and my husband simply blanked me for 24 hours. It was only the sheer comedy of his reaction, not to mention the attention of a young Greek sailor next to me at dinner that night, that kept my sense of humour going through the spectacle of Heiva that followed, a festival celebrating Polynesian heritage where hip-gyrating beauties in straw skirts tossed their tumbling, lustrous locks from side to side. You have to laugh sometimes. That's the dance we weave in relationships, that balancing act between wanting to please those we love and being true to ourselves, the course we steer.

Back to the present, at the studio, there was already such a rush of well-being in recognising so many familiar faces from the circus community who had come to see the work in progress, and meeting some new folk too, helping out with the production and in the audience, as we waited around in the foyer to be ushered in by producer Anna Duncan.

Lydia Harper took the floor and introduced the piece, which had been a couple of months in gestation and then six days in rehearsal at the Roundhouse. Lydia had taken inspiration from the book Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, a collection of short stories that explores and celebrates the complexity of human relationships in all their glorious comedy of errors and reconciliations. They had clearly had a ball over the past week rehearsing, as came across in the Instagram footage leading up to the showing, and Lydia observed that the secret was simply "just to work with very nice people".

The cast was made up of performers from different backgrounds, spanning dance, aerial and acrobatic disciplines. Their different skills combined beautifully with the energy between them to explore a whole variety of relationships, whether nurturing or heartbreaking, across nine separate scenes. The format echoed that of the book, but there were threads and developments running through too.

The Chinese pole was initially central to the space. I loved the innovation in the ways the performers mounted it, whether a solo climb, in duet, or using other performers gathered around it as a spiral staircase up. I wish I had the technical terms to do justice to all the tricks and bouncy energy of Josh Hoffman springing from move to move. Josh has previously performed with Ockham's Razor in Public, a piece exploring community, play and mutual support, and I liked the echo of that here, with the performers quite literally helping one another reach new heights. Then Maddie, bringing a quieter strength to the pole, her movements sinuous, almost river-like, before an inversion led to a sudden drop backwards, friends at the ready to catch her. Trust made visible.

Later, a beautiful duet on pole between Josh and Rebecca had both power and tenderness as they balanced each other out. I'd last seen Rebecca in Mimbre's Weight(less), where she was lifted by her fellow performers. Here, at moments, she was the one basing Josh, lifting him up the pole. I loved seeing that reversal, the roles of lifting and being lifted shifting once again.

The performance also illustrated how far we go to please each other and when to let go. Adam Havsky had come onto my radar this summer through his solo circus show Norman's Big Day Out, which I've still yet to see, but I was delighted to get a taste of his clowning here. There was wonderful comedy in his breakdance and body-popping moves to get Dilly's attention, not least those puppy-dog eyes pleading for her approval. His facial expressions were half the fun, at other moments quizzical, conveying as much as the movement itself. Dilly, meanwhile, watched with a sanguine, almost benevolent detachment, graceful and composed, but not quite drawn into his world.

It reminded me of a moment in Kook Ensemble's Sand where Myles tries to entertain Dilly through juggling at the breakfast table. In that piece, the heartbreak comes as Dilly becomes absorbed in the world of her younger self, drawing the younger couple into her play while Myles is left on the outside looking in. Here the circumstances were quite different, and the comedy much broader, but there was something similarly poignant in watching someone trying so hard to connect.

Adam's antics made me laugh, but it was when sparks began flying between Dilly and Maddie that her whole demeanour changed. The serene composure gave way to childlike delight, her graceful movements now animated by a shared sense of mischief and play.

With a rope suspended between them, they both moved into handstands, passing the rope between each other's feet and looping it around, before Maddie took to the air in her specialist discipline, aerial rope, set to Obsessions. It was stunning. At the end, high up on the rope, the bottom was held taut by the rest of the group as she slid down, doubled over, visually spectacular. Simple movements also touched me, like a seated hug, eloquent in its simplicity.

Perhaps rivers were already running through my mind because I'd just finished Elif Shafak's There Are Rivers in the Sky, in which Zaleekhah leaves her husband and moves onto a houseboat on the Thames, finding an unexpected connection with Nen, the woman who owns it. There was something of that sense of possibility in the energy between Dilly and Maddie, of relationships changing course and carrying us somewhere unexpected. Or perhaps it's simply that the books we read flow into the way we see the world.

As well as romance at play there was bromance, not least in the light-hearted one-upmanship in dance moves between Josh and Jason, which really made me smile. Jason comes from a dance background and I believe this was his first time working on a circus show. It was lovely to see him picking up the energy of the ensemble, and a few tricks along the way. His artistic eye clearly contributed to the creative mix too, not least in a wonderful sketch he'd drawn of the whole cast, rather Quentin Blake in style, which LEAP Circus later shared on Instagram. It captured something of that same playful spirit.

And then there was Rufus, the invisible, mischievous dog, slipper thief and serial absconder. There is a whole short story devoted to his perspective on life in Bob-Waksberg's collection. I smiled as the last Rufus I'd seen at the circus was a uni friend of mine who'd come along to Revel Pucks this summer, but what really made me laugh was the entreaties of the cast as they tried to bring Rufus to heel. He added to the rich tapestry of relationships that enrich life, and I appreciated that thread of absurdity running through the scenes as love, friendship and acrobatics played out around him.

Perhaps that's part of what I enjoyed about this showing. There was room for the ridiculous as well as the touching, for moments of spectacular physical skill alongside small, recognisable human gestures. Not everything needed explaining, nor would you expect it to after six days in the rehearsal room, and yet it felt complete, as well rounded as the performers themselves.

I came away smiling, glad to have spent an afternoon in such good company. I loved Lydia's vision for the piece, and the way this wonderful team of artists had brought it together, each contributing their own skills, personalities and creative energy. What stayed with me was the warmth between them, the humour, the genuine care and, above all, the pleasure they clearly took in playing together.

On the way home I downloaded Bob-Waksberg's collection on Audible, and I've been listening to it ever since. It dovetails rather nicely with another collection of short stories I picked up on my recent trip to York, Clarice Lispector's The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels. Both writers have a way of finding the surreal in the everyday, exploring the peculiarities and complexities of human relationships. Perhaps that's what I enjoyed so much about Damaged Glory too, seeing those absurdities and tendernesses given physical expression.

And I haven't even mentioned the music, which was brilliant. What a soundtrack, from Florence + The Machine's The End of Love to Marina's Obsessions, Freddie Mercury's Living on My Own and Irma Thomas's Anyone Who Knows What Love Is. Daria's video footage captures the spirit of the showing beautifully, and I love that it also gives a flavour of the music, so integral to the mood and movement of the piece. It's a wonderful glimpse of Lydia's vision and the collective creativity that brought it to life.

I can't wait to see where Damaged Glory goes next.

Director: Lydia Harper
Producer: Anna Duncan

Cast (alphabetical by surname): Madeleine Fuller, Adam Havsky, Joshua Hoffman, Jason Kandaiah, Rebecca Solomon, Dilly Taylor.

Video: Daria Izworska 

Photos courtesy of Lydia Harper

Cast from left to right: Jason, Rebecca, Dilly, Josh, Adam, Maddie

Chapter 268: Out of the Wings, Cuban Circus, et Voilà!

"Oh hi, Connie, I last saw you as a minion on stilts..." I was at the Cervantes Institute last week for an evening celebrating Spanish and Latin American theatre in translation organised by Out of the Wings, a collective of academics, researchers and theatre practitioners that brings Spanish and Portuguese language theatre in translation to the English speaking world. The evening was chaired by one of the founders Catherine Boyle, who had been my supervisor doing post grad research years ago, and the reason I was going along. Out of the Wings sprung out of a project with the RSC in 2004 bringing Golden Age Spanish plays to life including Catherine's translation of the romantic farce "House of Desires" by pioneering 17C Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. It was a lovely surprise to see Constanza Ruff as one of two actors reading excerpts in translation from  plays from Spain, Argentina, El Salvador and Cuba that evening, as I'd last seen her in summer as part of the Leap Circus kids' cabaret in Woolwich (see Chapter 258). She wears many hats. 

Now I was hearing the actors read from Cuban Abilio Estévez' play "The Great and Wondrous Circus Finally Closes Its Doors" in which a group of circus performers are faced with the fact that their director is finally closing down the show, an allegory for the collapse of contemporary Cuba through a poetic lens. I need to look into this more and read the play at some point, handy that the play's translator lives round the corner from me and has a spare copy. 

It took me back to a national theatre festival I went to in Camaguey in 2004 and the staging of Vade Retro (an exorcism term to expel the devil: "Vade Retro Satana"), written in early 60s by Cuban José Milián. The play was steeped in the tradition of the Theatre of Cruelty, a product of the turbulent years following the Cuban Revolution. The version I saw was directed by Gaspar González, nicknamed El Chino, who also played the Ringmaster. All I remember was a sense of combative energy and wondering what Milián made of it, sitting in the audience too. Gaspar took me under his wing while there, showing me the sights and introducing me to legendary cabaret singer Candita Batista. Oh, I loved her instantly, she was a force of joie de vivre. She had left Cuba amid racial discrimination and gone on to perform internationally, reminiscing about sharing stages with Josephine Baker and earning the name la vedette negra de Cuba, before returning to the island after the Revolution. She serenaded us with songs, the three of us sang together too, and she regaled us with stories, her wall graffitied with messages of love from fans who'd travelled the world over to visit her. There is a legend that if you ever drink from a tinajón, the lopsided earthernware water jugs around, that it seals your fate to return to Camaguey, but the years have past, I have yet to return, and Candita is no longer there. 

After hours in the evening all the actors would decamp and informal cabarets and games would carry on in La Barraca, over maybe a thimble of rum. One of the actors from Vade Retro, a clown on a unicycle, was wearing a necklace of white, black and green jade beads. As I complimented him on it, my stomach dropped with the realisation he would inevitably give it away to me. And so he did. Along with a lottery ticket that won me a turn in the spotlight, to the amusement of all, camping up my turn as a gringa. I rarely wear the necklace now for fear of destringing it, but it still sits on my dressing table in a small glass box in a stand, my circus rosary cum Cuban talisman. 

So it is striking to find these worlds overlapping again. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe the wondrous door is still open. 

VOILA festival 2026

Out of the Wings does fantastic work bringing page to stage and every last Friday of the month holds a round table at Kings' College London. One of the questions from the audience that arose that evening at the Cervantes Institute was whether there are other similar theatre projects in London translating other languages and cultures. I thought of Voilà Festival, that starts today. I came across the festival first thanks to Sharlit Deyzac and Leonor Lemée whose Two Tongued Theatre Boy's Club (See Chapter 160) was on at Jacksons Lane Postcards Festival when I was doing "Shhhh!". Voilà, as the name suggests, was then a French-English bilingual Fringe festival at the Cockpit which widened its frontiers in response to Brexit and now has Arts Council funding so really is a global celebration of theatre. Still produced by the Cockpit theatre, it starts today, running 2 - 26 November at venues all over London with 101 shows and events, performed in 60 different languages by 450 international artists. This includes Autrian-British circus theatre company Brainfools show Balance, an outdoor version of which I caught at Certain Blacks Ensemble Festival this summer (See Chapter 251). Catch it if you can! 

Voilà Festival 2-26 November 2026: www.voilafestival.co.uk

Out of the Wings: www.ootwfestival.com