History
Of the great stage acts performing in the 1970s there are few survivors, and most, like the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan, are from the music side of the business.
An extraordinary exception is The Flying Karamazov Brothers, the unique theatre group juggling, comedy and well-polished absurdity are its trademarks ñ that was born out of the Beat Generation and the anti-Vietnam war movement in California.
Today, The Flying Karamazovs are an international phenomenon, a quartet of juggler-clowns so successful that three separate troupes are often performing simultaneously in different countries.
The group’s huge legion of devoted fans ranges from Dolly Parton and Pete Townshend to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, Sir Tom Stoppard, Matt Groening and the American-Italian chef Mario Batali.
Besides numerous Broadway appearances, The Flying Karamazovs have performed at The White House, juggling with ornaments they found on the bookshelves behind President Jimmy Carter’s desk – though they insist that they didn’t use Carter’s collection of model anti-ballistic missiles as props.
Despite worldwide acclaim they have not entirely forgotten their radical roots on the streets of Santa Cruz and Haight Ashbury. On Broadway last year, they barred Sarah Palin when she tried to see their latest show (NAME) which opens in London (astonishingly, they made their first West End appearance in 1981) in June.
The Flying Karamazovs, in common with all truly original acts, are not easy to pigeonhole.
New Vaudeville is the easiest description that comes to mind, with the quartet’s wide-ranging shows incorporating juggling all and everything that comes to hand, sometimes to a conventional narrative, often going off on flights of fantasy, and sometimes backed by a full-scale orchestra.
Three things you can emphatically say about them are that they are not Russian, they don’t fly and they are not brothers.
“We are a bit Mel Brooks, a bit Marx Brothers, a bit Goon Show and a bit Monty Python,” says Magid.
Above all else, FKB’s members are mesmerising jugglers. One of their great trademark acts is a trick called The Challange in which “The Champ” played by Magid these days will juggle any three items provided by the audience.
These must conform to rules. The objects must weigh more than an ounce but must be under 10lbs. They must be no bigger than a breadbox, must not be a live animal but must not be able to stop “The Champ” being a live animal.
The Champ can make up to three modifications to make the items more manageable. If he can juggle them for a count of 10 he wins a standing ovation. If he fails in three tries he receives a pie in the face.
Such is the audience’s imagination that it is not unusual for The Champ to get the pie. Typically challenging items forced on FKB have included a snowball, a dead fish, a cheesecake or a fishnet stocking filled with eggs.
Juggling has defined FKB for almost five decades but Magid says: “In some ways juggling is a red herring.”
“We have probably pushed juggling further than anybody has but ultimately we are about the theatre. Theatre is the art of everything it’s music, literature, dance, architecture and yes, juggling is in there too, and we pull it together into what I suppose you could say was a very complete form of theatre.
As a performer you should be capable of doing everything and that’s something that has been lost in the last 50 years.
If it was just about juggling, probably nobody would come to see us because it could be pretty boring.”