New York Post
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Who's best juggler in act? It's a toss-up.
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OK, I know already. They are not actually brothers, and their family names are not actually Karamazov, and they sure as hell don't actually fly. They juggle. And, if memory serves, there used to be five of them and now, recession, recession there are only four.
But picky, picky - the Flying Karamazov Brothers are back in town, installed at that lovely renovated New Victory Theater and everyone slightly intent on happy holidays should put a Karamazov on their shopping list.
Jugglers! Well, to call the Brothren Karamazov jugglers is rather like calling the Concorde an airplane. They are, and it is. But distinctions must be made for distinction.
Their new show, which runs through Jan. 1 - so hurry, hurry, you have less than a month - is called "Sharps Flats & Accidentals," and not for the first time the Karamazovs art drawing attention to the links between juggling, mathematics and, particularly music.
Perhaps as musicians they are marvelous jugglers, but their fun and adroitness make both their weird music-making and dazzling juggling equally magical and entertaining. And if Kurt Masul could juggle as well as these guys musical nights at the Philharmonic would be a lot less predictable. For who but the subversive Karamazovs would open a program with Mozart's "Bassoon Concerto" played by orchestral forces weird enough to have disconcerted Mozart, a solo cadenza that would have staggered him, and the bassoon replaced by a euphonium which would have intrigued him? The tricks they play with musical instruments, digital hardware and their chosen weapons of juggle are as extraordinary as they are entertaining.
But, in case you are concerned that amid all this long-hair music and technology - its sight is worse than its Bach- Cheap tricks and vaudeville custard-pie vulgarity has been abandoned, rest assured. The Gamble," whereby one of the Karamazovs tries to juggle any (within kamikaze bounds) three objects "supplied and chosen by the audience," is still up for grabs. Bring a few goodies with you.
By the way if you are interested in the high flyers' real names don't tell the police they are Paul Magid. Howard Jay Patterson, Michael Preston and Sam Williams. and they are all wanted for lunacy in the first degree.
By Clive Barnes
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