Karamazovs Keep Antics Flying High

The Flying Karamazov Brothers brought a light sprinkling of chuckles to a warm summer evening at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday.

They came with large chunks of their show “Sharps, Flats & Accidentals,” which illustrates parallels between their comic juggling and music. This show also was seen in several indoor Southland venues in early 1997--but without the services of a glossy backup ensemble. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra served in that capacity Sunday and also played several pops selections on its own, led by John Mauceri.

The question lingering over the Karamazovs in such a huge venue was whether their act would carry to the distant back rows. I watched them from a relatively close box seat until intermission, then moved to the rear for the first part of the second half. There, I witnessed from afar their “jazz juggling” number, in which they do four-man improvisational juggling of white clubs, with each Brother assigned a role that corresponds to a particular instrumentalist’s.

From that vantage, it was hard to identify individual Brothers, except for Sam Williams’ Smerdyakov, whose bald pate and frizzy hair on the sides of his head make for the most distinctive look in the quartet. However, the flight patterns of the hurled clubs could still be followed. The Karamazovs’ amplified soundtrack of witty commentary was perfectly audible, although it was necessary to make educated guesses about exactly who was speaking at any one time. Still, the act made sense, in so far as it ever does.

On the other hand, the remoteness of most of the audience from the stage action did inhibit the gradual growth of comic intensity that is expected from the Brothers. Laughs dispersed quickly in the wide open spaces. Occasionally the orchestra members seemed to appreciate jokes that eluded those of us in the boondocks.

The Brothers did a variety of juggling routines, but they didn’t follow their normal custom of asking audience members for additional objects to juggle, perhaps recognizing that some things might be too small for this venue. They also drummed cardboard boxes while wearing taiko outfits, did a ballet number in drag and used a device that translated sounds caused by the pounding of their helmets into a very rough rendition of the choral theme from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

In addition, Ivan Karamazov (Howard Jay Patterson) performed a fairly solid version of the first movement of a Mozart bassoon concerto, substituting a euphonium for the bassoon, adding comic body language and introducing several unexpected themes from other compositions into his cadenza.