Review
Chicago Sun-Times
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December 26, 2002
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Wacky, ingenious Brothers lift holiday to higher plane
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BY ANDREW PATNER
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Every once in a while, newspaper editors are right in hounding an otherwise all-knowing critic into seeing and reviewing a show. The Flying Karamazov Brothers' holiday engagement, "Catch!" at the Royal George Theatre mainstage, is one of those times.
As did so many fans of these crazed yet highly disciplined jugglers who emerged from the San Francisco street theater scene of the 1960s, I first became acquainted with Dmitri, Ivan and Co. back in the 1970s. Their appearances at the late, lamented Goodman Studio Theatre and on the Goodman mainstage in "The Three Moscowteers" and a re-worked version of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" were don't-miss events in my family and among my friends.
But I had no idea that the Brothers (OK, they're not really brothers, and no, they're not Russian either, and no, they don't actually fly, but they come pretty darned close) would still be at the top of their game after almost 30 years of waving their arms or that I would still be enchanted by their combination of juggling--both bizarre and traditional--and highly verbal clowning. Well, I was, the entire audience that I saw the 90-minute show with on Monday night was, and I cannot see how you won't be, too.
With all of the lifeless, over-produced and heavily formulaic shows filling both Broadway and downtown stages--think "Stomp,'' "Blast!,'' "Riverdance'' and on and on--the refreshing power of four wacky and ingenious guys taking a stage and all of your attention with nary a microphone or special effect in the house is tremendous. In addition to the usual pins, of course, the quartet take up the usual, for them, dry ice, raw eggs and meat cleavers. In their trademark audience participation section on Monday evening, they handled a metal crutch, a cast plaster statue of a nun and a dish rack.
Mere acrobatics, of course, are not all there is to the Flying K's. Co-founders Paul Magid (Dmitri) and Howard Jay Patterson (Ivan) somehow keep alive a wacko and effortlessly biting sensibility that I had feared had died with the old Firesign Theatre. Puns and politics, word play and satire, much of it improvised on the spot and racily topical, fall from their tongues as rapidly and seamlessly as pins fly from their busy hands. For those keeping score, the newer members are the musically gifted (yes, they play instruments and sing, too) Mark Ettinger (Alexei) and the baby-faced Roderick Kimball (Pavel), surely the first Brother unable to grow a considerable shock of facial hair.
Normally, to quote Magid/ Dmitri, "you can't pull the wool over my thighs,'' but these guys do and they tie me up with a bright red bow, too. I mean, where else could you learn in the midst of a "nine objects of danger'' juggling act--which includes a flaming torch and a skillet--that "ukulele" is Hawaiian for "Albuquerque?"
May they fly another 30 years!
THEATER REVIEW
'THE FLYING KARAMAZOV BROTHERS: CATCH!' HIGHLY RECOMMENDED | |
