The Flying Karamazov Brothers’ “Airplay” is an hour and a half of cleverly whimsical fun. They create a quartet of quirky comedians who mix farcical vaudeville with juggling prowess. Sunday Jan. 16 the Brothers performed two shows in Smothers Theater.
The Brothers transport the audience back to a world of child-like pleasures reminding them of the pure satisfaction of simplicity and sensation.
The Karamazov Brothers’ concept is a simple one: four men juggling eliciting hearty laughter and playful smiles out of the anxious audience. The show kicks off with a beautifully simple cardboard box drum circle taking the audience on a journey to revisit their inner child. The brothers steer the audience away from the stressful complexity of everyday life and toward the instinctive pleasures of childhood never questioning their actions but rather following what simply felt right.
The comedic quartet makes a connection with the audience. They draw them into their act by poking fun at “Malibars or native Malibuians as one brother put it.
Through their improvised comedy and light-hearted jest, the Brothers open their doors to the audience, allowing viewers to experience the impromptu jokes, which even make the performers giggle. They coax hoots and hollers for triple shouts of Terror!” as they build up anticipation throughout the show for the final feat of juggling 10 terrible objects ranging from a butcher‘s knife to a raw egg.
The Brothers challenge the crowd to come up with juggling objects that will put their finesse to the test.
“Someone tried to defeat us said one of the brothers, with a welded metal box slathered in Crisco with a weighted ball that rolled around inside.”
These Jimi Hendrixes of juggling go a beat beyond the typical toss-and-catch routine with their experimental juggling variety show. As they venture into behind-the-back tosses throws with a twirl and simultaneous juggling and drum banging the Flying Karamazov Brothers’ musical backgrounds are apparent as they forge a refreshing connection between rhythm and juggling. One brother draws attention to the beats created by the slap of a juggling club into each gloved hand early on in the show establishing that much like music “juggling is rhythm.”
Throughout the show the Brothers conjure creative musical masterminds from Beethoven to the Beatles Shakespeare to the Marx Brothers who paved the road to foreign realms of entertainment leading to the refreshing act. Snippets of Moonlight Sonata and Revolution 9 dance among puns and fanciful alliteration betwixt several scenarios of the men in skirts and slapstick silliness. Even Lady Gaga is honored in a cover of her hit “Bad Romance” with an acoustic breakdown of her music video featuring two of the Brothers as smashing back-up dancers.
The Flying Karamazov Brothers pay homage to the 19th century Russian novel “The Brothers Karamazov which examines crucial philosophical questions of human existence, confronting the anxiety of choice.
The deconstruction of a formalized performance, represented brilliantly by a set pieced together by stacked cardboard boxes, puts the audience at ease to feel relaxed as the show taps in to their primordial instincts. The effect is a show of brilliance, interlacing the multiple art forms of architecture, music, dance, poetry, acting and laughter.
The Flying Karamazov Brothers dare the audience to produce juggling fare which will defeat the tossing troupe, then unwittingly return us to our center of gravity, reminding us Malibars” of the sweet symphony of a cardboard box drum set.