🚀 go-pugleaf

There is a long article in today's (1/24/92) Seattle Times about the Flying
Karamazov Brothers, and their upcoming new show.  The article is in the
Pacific magazine, which is one of those Sunday insert magazine deals.  In
the interests of scooping Juggler's World & Two-Ply, I have excerpted some
interesting bits below.  (completely without permission)  Beg, borrow or
steal your own copy if you are a Flying K's fan.  There is lots of info about
their history, personalities, various shows, etc. which is pretty good, but
probably not news to most readers of this newsgroup.

                   JUGGLING TWO WORLDS
          The Flying Karamazov Brothers hang in Port Townsend,
            balancing freedom with success

...
It's the hippie dream come true:  Do What You Love and the (Big) Money Will
Follow.  And do it *your* way: live semi-tribally on an 80-acre Olympic
Peninsula spread.  Bring impish joy to the multitudes.  Dress flamboyantly,
in pantaloons, epaulets and floppy velvet hats.  And never cut your hair.
To borrow the immortal words of David Crosby, the Flying K's have "let their
freak flags fly" long after most baby-boomers surrendered to a barber.

But will the K brethren be content to crisscross the globe for another 20
years, keeping up a killer regimen of 200 one-night stands per annum?  Nyet.
On the brink of turning 40, they yearn to go legit -- funny legit.  They
want more time at home with wives and children.  And -- dare we say it? --
they long to prove themselves as multi-faceted dramatic ARTISTS, not mere
JUGGLERS.

They'll have a chance to do just that in a wacky new musical version of the
Great Novel that inspired their corporate name.  Scripted by Magid, with
lyrics by Patterson, the eponymous "Flying Karamazov Brothers in The
Brothers Karamazov" is being staged by one of Broadway's reigning directors,
Daniel Sullivan.  It premieres Feb. 10 at Seattle Repertory Theatre, where
Sullivan is artistic director.

...

After the Portland gig, Furst -- who always remained silent onstage, a la 
Harpo -- leaves to pursue his own projects.  His replacement, a baby-faced
New York actor named Michael Preston, is here to soak up ambience and learn 
the classic K routines.

...

But describe the Flying Karamazov Brothers as mere jugglers and you'll
hit a nerve.  "We're constantly labeled as this one thing, and it's way too
limiting," complains Magid.  "We've always thought of what we do as theater.
It's rhythm, movement, sculpture, music ... theater."

...

Since moving to Washington, the K's have continued their rigorous schedule of
touring and premiering new theatrical works.  Last summer, at the La Jolla
Playhouse near San Diego, they opened an entirely original show, "Le
Petomane."  This offbeat film-theater fusion (with script, as usual, by
Magid) centered on turn-of-the century Parisian variety artist Joseph Pujol,
who performed musical and comedic feats by expelling vast quantities of gas
from his colon.  

...

The Rep's "Flying Karamazov Brothers in the Brother Karamazov" will have
plenty of juggling -- among other things.  The free-form musical features
a cast of 11 and music by the K's longtime house band, the Kamikaze Ground
Crew.  After six weeks here, it moves to the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.,
which is co-producing.  Broadway is a possibility.

"Ever since we took the name Karamazov, we've planned to do this," Patterson
admits.  "We thought we'd do it as a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta."

Magid's script turned out more Borscht Belt than G & S.  In his conception,
the brothers K are Brooklyn Jews (not Russian Christians) whose father runs
a novelty shop.  There's also a wise rabbi in place of the novel's 
charismatic monk, Zosima.  "It's our revenge on Dostoevsky's must-vaunted
anti-Semitism," Magid dryly advises.

Dan Sullivan describes the show as "a comic deconstruction of 'Brothers
Karamazov,' not a literal adaptation.  It's about a bunch of guys trying
to discover what the novel is, and how to explore it.  I like to say that
some of the events in the book also occur in the play."

And what about the tortured, soul-searching broodiness of the original? 
Don't expect much of that to survive this translation.  "We decided nothing
was sancrosanct," Sullivan reports.  But Magid has a point when he asks,
"Who better to express the sorrow of the world but us clowns?"

Last spring, the Rep briefly unveiled a workshop version of the piece.  It
was a chance to hear the script and experiment with the K's daunting arsenal
of sight-gag ideas.  "These guys do not give up," chuckles Sullivan.  "We
did get them to eliminate a condom-juggling routine.  It turned out they
were very difficult to juggle when filled with water."

"But Paul wanted his hat to explode at one point, and I thought it was way
too dangerous.  Sure enough, he got with our prop people and they did it.
Not only will his hat blow up, but his shoes, too.  It's quite amazing."

...

The K's master plan sounds idyllic.  But the scenario has its pitfalls.

The acceleration of theater projects has already caused an internal rift.
Furst, perhaps the best juggler of the lot, has left the brotherhood not
because of a bad back (as his colleagues suggest), but, as he puts it,
"artistic differences."

"I didn't mind doing plays occasionally, but I thought we should still be
a self-contained group and our own producers," says Furst.  "I wanted us to
keep doing the type of act we'd been doing, not give up control by working
in institutions with their own rules."

The parting seems amicable.  And it's likely Michael Preston will carve out
his own niche in the act.  (His stage moniker will be Alyosha, after the
youngest fictional Karamazov)

<end of excerpts>

Whew!  There's lots more good stuff, and some nice pictures.  But my fingers
are tired, so go look it up yourself if you're interested.  
    -John ("mere juggler") Vert  (jvert@microsoft.com)