Seattle Times
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Published: Jan. 28, 2002
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My how time and juggling pins fly when you're having fun.
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Reviewed by Misha Berson Seattle Times theater critic
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Call for Tickets: 206-292-7676
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Nearly 30 years have passed since the Flying Karamazov Brothers first got their shtick together in San Francisco. And though many other neo-vaudeville acts of the same vintage long ago went underground, joined the circus or disbanded, the Flying K's (now led by two key founding members, Howard Jay Patterson and Paul Magid) keep right on cavorting.
Their new four-man show "Catch!," premiering at A Contemporary Theatre, is a compendium of three decades of favorite bits mixed in with some new gambits. And once it gets in the groove, "Catch!" is rollicking good fun.
In recent times, the Flying K's have branched out into the techno-sphere, joining forces with science wizards at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to invent elaborate multi-media effects for their show,"L'Universe."
"Catch!," however, is refreshingly low on digital gadgetry and cheerfully high on the puns, silly gags, wise-guy clowning and "cheap theatrics" that propelled the Flying K's from the streets of Haight Ashbury to the "legit" theaters of New York City.
At ACT, the perennially Groucho-esque Magid (aka Dmitri Karamazov) and dry-witted Patterson (Ivan Karamazov) are joined by two newer mock-siblings, the pixieish Mark Ettinger (Alexei) and baby-faced Roderick Kimball (Pavel).
After a rather sluggish first half-hour the show gets much zippier. A running "Twilight Zone" bit takes us back to various time zones in the history of the Flying K's. And the variety-style format of "Catch!" accommodates all manner of pranks.
Some highlights: an ingenious verbal and physical juggling duo, set to a passage from Tom Stoppard's play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead!" A Taiko drumming bit with the K's wailing away on cardboard boxes instead of drums. A Polish-Appalachian clog-dancing routine. (Bizarre, and very funny.) And a frenzied climactic juggle of nine ominous objects ÷ including a bottle of champagne, a flaming torch and a meat cleaver. (Don't try this at home, kids.)
As always, the quick-quipping Karamazovs are at their very best when playing nimbly off the crowd. Their ever-popular bit, "The Challenge," which has Patterson trying to juggle three objects brought in by the audience, is a surefire howler. At a recent matinee, he triumphantly kept a carton of milk, a handful of spaghetti and a bottle of spring water in the air for 10 passes.
And a (new?) interactive routine, in which the K's offer to teach audience members to juggle in three minutes flat, is also an improvisational hoot.
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