Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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Saturday, February 28, 2004
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Karamazov Brothers are flying even higher
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By JOE ADCOCK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER THEATER CRITIC
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One man's better is another man's worse. I'd say the Flying Karamazov Brothers, at ACT Theatre, are putting on a better show now than they did when I saw them there 10 or 20 years ago. But longtime members of the considerable Karamazov cult might not agree.
There's less virtuoso juggling. There are fewer ghastly/geeky puns. But the music, clowning, scenery, dancing, storytelling and puppetry are richer now, much richer.
The latest Karamazov show, "Life, a Guide for the Perplexed," even has a touch of pathos. There's a melancholy concept: Karamazov co-founder and "Perplexed" author Paul Magid is experiencing a midlife crisis. He therefore turns to "A Guide for the Perplexed," a book by the 12th-century Aristotelian rabbi Maimonides. And we're off.
Not that we're off in any particular direction. The Karamazov's juggle wildly disparate dramatic materials. A catchy tune has world-weary lyrics by William Shakespeare no less -- Jaques' "seven ages of man" speech from "As You Like It." The drollest of the four Karamazovs, Roderick Kimball, enacts the infancy-to-senility scenario.
The Karamazov's are not Russian. They are not even Dostoevskian. They are not brothers. And they don't fly. Aside from that, they are entirely genuine.
One of Karamazov co-founder Howard Jay Patterson's startling contributions is a hobbit conflict that somehow was omitted from "The Lord of the Rings."
Mark Ettinger is particularly versatile. Besides being an ace juggler, he is a notable musician and actor. In one of his funniest bits, he is a fanatical South Asian storyteller whose "Mwaboigita Trilogy" adds to the vast anthology of Lord Krishna tales. The trilogy's finale is a Rockettes-like spectacular performed with the aid of eight high-stepping rod puppets.
Also serving a puppetry function is beautiful scenery by Bliss Kolb. The main set pieces are wiggly buildings that look like three-dimensional versions of Maurice Sendak drawings. The buildings waltz around the stage. And they open up to reveal a family living room, a desert oasis, a Van Gogh starry sky -- even a compartment in hell with a 1938 female devil pinup calendar on the wall.
Though chaotic, "Life, a Guide for the Perplexed" is engaging at least 80 percent of the time. Even the bad jokes are good. One of the characters played by Kimball is the 18th-century B.C. Babylonian ruler Hammurabi, famous as the formulator of what is known as "Hammurabi's Code." Hammurabi has a cold. Owing to upper respiratory congestion, his declaration that he has a cold sounds as if he is saying he has a code.
Dumb? Yes. But it works.
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