Review
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 1990
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THE FLYING KARAMAZOV BROTHERS
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"The Scotsman" 18th August 1990
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"THE SCOTSMAN"
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FESTIVAL REVIEWS
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A very model troupe CLUB!
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Flying Karamazov Brothers
Royal Lyceum Theatre/St
Bride's Centre
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| EACH wears a baggy black suit; one wears a red shirt and shoes, another grey, a third green and a fourth blue. Each juggles. But wait for this. Two of them sing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," play harmonicas, the Marimba, tap dance, chew gum and juggle clubs, spectacularly, but do all of these things at the same time.
Although each of these Californian jugglers has the shoulder or waist-length hair of the sixties their act is rooted in the much earlier traditions of Vaudeville.
The cornerstone is juggling, from its most elementary solo: three clubs in the air passing from right to left hand; to the complexities of multi-directional formation routines: 12 clubs throwing forwards, back-spinning, cross-passing one to another. |
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For those who are looking for it, Club! wears its theatrical and philosophical roots on its playful sleeve. "We are the very model of a modern Vaudevillian juggling group," a patter song sung to accompany an awesomely proficient demonstration of four-way European club juggling, is transparently Gilbertian in its rhythms and intricacies.
And you can, if you want, learn a lot about the technique of solo, double, triple and four-way juggling, and the role of the feeder and the feedee, all of which, to committed juggling people, is utterly engrossing.
Should you wish to 90 a little deeper, the Brothers will tell you that juggling is illustrated in the tomb painting of ancient Egypt, outline the similarities of combination juggling and jazz instrumentation, and, in a beautifully-paced, wordless sketch featuring four large cardboard boxes, a couple of dustbins, and a dozen empty wine bottles, demonstrate the percussive and Vaudevillian possibilities of the kind of stage set demanded by Samuel Beckett.
On the other hand, should you wish 90 minutes of relaxing entertainment watching geometrically elegant juggling with clubs, sickles, meat cleavers, and whatever small object you yourself care to take along, you would not do better than this excellent quartet.
Peter Whitebrook
This performance was sponsored by Ethicon
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