Circus La Putyka is celebrating 15 years of existence today with the premiere of the show Okamžik. During them, 300 performers of twenty-five nationalities passed through the ensemble. “I created my own idea of the theater,” says principal and actor Rosťa Novák Jr.
Descendant of the famous Kopecký family of puppeteers in the eighth generation, an athlete at heart, a trained actor, with Circus La Putyka, he is a success with domestic audiences and on international stages.
“Every day that I can spend with people from our ensemble is euphoric for me. I feel like an explorer. I discover new landscapes, new beauties of life. I experience euphoria every day at the exam,” says Rosťa Novák Jr. in an interview that is part of the List of News Gallery of Personalities project.
He voluntarily left acting in classical theaters and TV series more than fifteen years ago and embarked on an alternative path that, using a number of acrobatic skills, led him to extraordinary success.
Thanks to him, Circus La Putyka was also able to offer help to people in need during the covid lockdown and also after the start of the war in Ukraine caused by Russia – and to grow significantly, for example by students of the Kyiv Academy of Theater and Circus Arts. From fifty people before covid and before the war, 150 members of the ensemble now belong to Novák’s La Putyca.
Art that helps
“We never knew before that we could help someone by doing what we do. Now for us the words culture and art have a different meaning, different values than before covid,” says Rosťa Novák Jr. in the interview. After the beginning of the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory, they offered asylum to 34 students of the Kyiv Academy of Theater and Circus Arts.
Novák, although with acting genes from both his mother and father, originally wanted to avoid this profession and, with his hyperactivity and concentration problems, prefer to devote himself to elite sports. At the age of eighteen, however, he stood on stage for the first time: “At that moment, I realized that I couldn’t escape it anyway. That family tradition grabbed me back.’
Photo: Michal Šula, Seznam Zpravy
“When we see the standards for performances in other countries, then one realizes how great we are here. We can create absolutely freely,” says Rosťa Novák Jr. in an interview with Jiří Kubík.
“Nowadays it’s called ADHD and it sounds modern. I have a very strong personal experience with it, but it used to be called mild brain dysfunction,” says Novák. “I’ve been struggling with this all my life, to find some new quality in this disorder. Of course, it’s hard for those around me – hyperactivity, various anxiety states, dyslexia, dysgraphia… Great physical effort, mood swings, from extreme joy to extreme sadness.”
Although he was diagnosed with the disorder at the age of three by a recognized child psychologist, professor Zdeněk Matějček, it was diagnosed by Rosťa Novák Jr. until recently. he didn’t deal with it in any particular way. Only working in La Putyka Circus helped him. “I even made a show about it. It is actually a search for balance in some chaotic state of mind. It’s a lifetime run,” he says in his candid confession.
Seven years with an idea in my head
How does ADHD actually inspire him in his current role? “When I have an idea for a performance, it doesn’t disappear from my head, it’s nestled somewhere in the back, I see the images, I see the theme… And I feel a great urge to share it. Not only with the team that I want to involve, but also with the audience. Now I have a chosen project in which I am completely immersed, a show about elite sports. A combination of art and sport. What goes on in the head of a top athlete? Why does a top athlete actually do this? What drives him to train again? When he puts on the jersey, enters the stadium, it’s a kind of performance, but he’s gone in maybe eight seconds. It’s an incredible adrenaline rush, and it’s the same as what we experience.”
He first talked about the project called Sun Art with his brother Vítek Novák, who is the manager and production company of Cirk La Putyka, in 2017. Now they are starting to work intensively on the preparation, the premiere will be next year.
Photo: LaPutyka.cz, Seznam Zpravy
A shot from the new show Okamžik, with which Cirkus La Putyka is celebrating its 15th anniversary.
Naked on stage? Unthinkable in Canada
At the end of last year, Rosťa Novák Jr. directed the performance RIE (Rest in Euphoria), which ends with a scene where eighteen performers stand on stage without clothes.
“A Canadian promoter came and said that he really liked the show, but that the final scene certainly couldn’t be in Canada, in Montreal. Or when we played in America, the guys weren’t allowed to be upstairs without. We had to give them costumes, and they had to be pink and orange. That, in turn, was dictated by an American agent. These are the standards of individual countries,” says the principal: “Then you will realize how great we are here. We can create absolutely freely.”
According to him, this is also the reason why so many applicants from other countries participate in the auditions for new performers in his troupe. Last February, five hundred people from 34 countries applied, eight of them were selected.
“I took a break from directing this year,” says Rosťa Novák Jr. “I’m not even directing the fifteen-year celebration we’re having on May 2 at the Asylum (Performance Moments in Asylum 78, marquee at the Exhibition Center in Prague-Holešovice, editor’s note), directed by Finnish director Maksim Komaro. Thanks to the experience I have had over the past fifteen years, I know that if I were to step into another direction now, it would be a mistake for which my family, myself and the team would pay the price. So I stepped back for a year and am trying to prepare the company so that we can continue to discover the undiscovered.”
What actually gave rise to the plan to create Circus La Putyka? How did the group manage to overcome the covid period and still grow significantly during it? Why did they fly the performers to Rwanda among homeless people for one performance? And what is it like to work in one “company” with both parents, brother, wife and children?
Interview with Roső Novák Jr. you can already listen to the audio version at the beginning of the article – we will publish the transcript and video recording of the entire interview on Saturday.
