The Saddest Circus in the World - J. Návratová

The Krepkso creative team chose the “dronte” – the extinct Dodo bird – as the source of their inspiration in their latest production. Their mysterious wildlife character represents a symbol of deep nostalgia, an irrevocable sorrow, using a dismal depth of idealised memories.

The performance takes on the form of a circus – the stage is like a chapiteau circus text, the audience sits in a semi-circle, and a band plays on the stage. The spectators must navigate through a dark labyrinth, discovering many different characters, objects and puppets. This prologue brings about a feeling of a journey somewhere into the past, into the mysteries of one’s memory. Even though the audience is regularly pampered by a blonde in a swimsuit (who adds constantly to the programme with her offers of peanuts and continually humouring herself with whatever gags she can think of when she cannot find the exit), it is perhaps impossible to “be entertained” by the programme in the proper sense of the word. All of the sequences have a bitter-strange tinge, with an internal pain and sugar-coated comics.

Let’s take the “young lion” as an example. The lion is proud of his beautiful tail, but when he discovers that he is the only one in the auditorium who has one, the only one who has such a thing that sticks out of his pants, the result is panic and he tries desperately to get rid of it in the most brutal way, in the end, trying to blow it up with dynamite. Not only does he try to turn himself into an average, ordinary, uninteresting young being, but without his tail, he does not maintain any kind of level, and for the entire programme it is completely impractical.

Liquidation is an important motive in the show. A very special character is that of the cleaner, who in a normal circus performance could be identified as a director, but here he supervises and cleans! For everyone who was not successful in the performance – and this is without a doubt everyone – there is a large plastic bag. The programme of this freak show does not resonate; one can find perhaps only a troublesome, painful flow, yet injected here and there with the energy of the melodic music. The excellent band Duchess and the Kittens with their cafe-like sounds and fascinating female vocalist (whose other role in the programme would be a shame to reveal) is a great revelation in this performance.