Acrobats jump up and down on a teeter totter then propel themselves to a trampoline while a ballerina dances on her toes in circles to the music of Mozart.
A woman gets stuck in a ceiling-high ladder as a bassoon duet plays.
A badminton player juggles with dozens of birdies and rackets.
Daniel Komarov, an aspiring Olympic champion as a youngster, is happy to be on stage and part of all that silliness and physicality. It’s what Cirk La Putyka does, and he’s part of the group that will perform Slapstick Sonata at Genesee Theatre March 7.
The performers are from Czechoslovakia but you don’t have to know the language to enjoy it. It’s done without words, just music in the background as they show off their acrobatic skills to tell a story about night shift workers who abandon their boring routine and get silly.
The group describes its performances as visual poetry meeting physical comedy with a dash of contemporary circus.
“I love our artistic way – it’s always a big challenge,” said Komarov from his home in Czechoslovakia. Komarov belongs to a sports aerobics Czech national team. He has won many Czech championships in trampoline sports.
His first foray into theater was when he joined Cirk La Putyka eight years ago, he said.
“I don’t feel like I’m doing sports when I’m in the theater,” he said. “Everything is physical, but I’m not thinking about sports. It’s something totally different. It’s physical choreography,” he said.
Komarov said a friend asked him to join Cirk La Putyka when it formed eight years ago. Komarov had all the right skills. “I’m an acrobat, a bit of an actor, bit of a puppeteer, sometime dancer – whatever I have to be during our shows,” he said in a follow-up email.
The mission of the group is to entertain and surprise the audience, he said. The audience “will see six different artists, good circus skills and a show full of playfulness and cleverness.”
He said the show combines absurdity with humor. “If someone falls like an apple from the tree and one second later does a perfect trick, this is absurd,” he said.
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Komarov said the audience will find it easy to understand the show. “The audience can relax and enjoy pictures with music and have fun.”
Komarov has toured with the troupe in Eastern Europe, Australia, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and other countries and said every audience is different. He said the troupe was told to expect an audience in Helsinki, Finland to applaud twice and that’s it. But after the show, he said the audience applauded for a long time bringing them back to the stage five times. “And I heard somebody whistling,” he said.
Komarov performs seven different shows including Slapstick Sonata. Last year he performed 250 times on stage with the troupe.
“It’s almost like every day practicing,” he said. “It’s like an Olympic training.”
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
Cirk La Putyka: Slapstick Sonata
When: 7 p.m., March 7
Where: Genesee Theatre, 203 N. Genesee St., Waukegan
Tickets: $28-$39
Information: 847-782-2366; www.geneseetheatre.com