STAGE REVIEW : Flying Karamazovs Loosen Grip in ‘Club’

The Flying Karamazov Brothers are back in town, at the Henry Fonda Theatre. Their new show, “Club,” isn’t too different from their last show at the Doolittle, “Juggle & Hyde,” except that now there are four “brothers” rather than five. Alyosha (Randy Nelson) has apparently gone off to the monastery.

That leaves Dmitri (Paul David Magid), Fyodor (Timothy Daniel Frost), Ivan (Howard Jay Patterson)--and the little one, Smerdyakov (Sam Taylor). What they do, besides play the trombone and make bad puns, is juggle. When they’re inspired, they do it better than anybody else. Tuesday night, they weren’t inspired.

They weren’t bad. But when the clubs started hitting the floor even when the boys were demonstrating the kind of juggling that any dub can do, you knew that it was going to be one of those nights.

A certain amount of this can be worked into the act. In fact, it’s essential to the act. The embrace of error is one of the Flying K’s basic principles. Error, sin--it’s all part of the big picture. Got it. Still, we don’t go to a juggling show to watch people drop things.

They remain charming guys, especially Taylor as Smerdyakov. More than ever he suggests the whiskered gnome who knows the magic riddle. (Perhaps it’s because “Into the Woods” is in town.) He also comes up with their best bad puns, sometimes rather gross ones.

That suits some of the questionable objects that people throw on stage during the challenge section. The idea is that Ivan (Patterson) will juggle three items of his selection for 10 seconds or take a pie in the face. Tuesday’s items were a Smurf figure, a bag of French fries and a glob of tofu, and Ivan outlasted the tofu.

This last is a set piece in all Flying K shows. “Club” also continues their search for some new, loony way to combine juggling with music. Their big finish this time sees them playing the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on electronic sensors strapped to their bodies, the note depending on the club received. The results were spotty, but the concept was enough to justify it.

The show’s low point was a tie: either the private-eye spoof or the bums-at-the-ashcans number. The first (characteristically entitled “The Maltese Flagon”) went on for about nine hours, and the second never got rolling, partly due to a technical misfire and partly due to the fact that ashcans and bums have stopped being the stuff of vaudeville sketches and have become the stuff of real life.

There were also moments Tuesday night when the Flying K’s were indeed flying--when the clubs took on the life of gooney birds doing loop-the-loops, or that of electrons whizzing about a chamber. Here we had the ecstasy of juggling, so similar to that of a great jazz combo, everyone doing his thing and everything cooking.

“Club” needs more ecstasy and less indeterminacy.

At 6612 Hollywood Blvd., Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays 3 and 7 p.m. Closes Feb. 26. Tickets $15-$25; (213) 410-1062 or (714) 634-1300.