The Unbearable Banishment: A cleaver, an egg, a fish, a lit torch, a bottle of cheap champagne

Friday, July 23, 2010

A cleaver, an egg, a fish, a lit torch, a bottle of cheap champagne

And by "lit torch" I don't mean a flashlight. I mean a stick with one end on fire. These are just some of the items juggled by the four lunatics who are The Flying Karamazov Brothers. Their new show, 4 Play, is currently down in the Village at the Minetta Lane Theater.


The brothers, Dmitri, Alexei, Pavel and Zossima (no, they're not really brothers), have been around in various iterations since 1972 with Dimitri, second from left, as the founder and one constant member. This is exactly the type of light, pleasant entertainment you want in the heat of summer before the really thick stuff sets in. [A revival of Mamet's A Life in the Theater with Patrick Stewart can wait until October.]

The show is classic Vaudeville. :90 minutes of comedy, music, dance and loads of juggling. It's all sounds too quaint and pedestrian but I had a great time and more than a few moments of inspired awe. One segment had audience members bring items up to the stage for them to juggle. The bet is that Dmitri can keep them aloft. He gets a standing ovation if successful and a pie in the face if he fails. This evening, he successfully juggled a pink tutu, a surgical glove filled with water, a lipstick tube and a tin coffee pot. The video on their site shows that someone brought in an entire pizza for him to juggle. C'mon! How can you not be entertained by that?! I'm hoping I can bring The Girls into the city to see it before the end of the run.

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20 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's always entertaining to watch somebody else do the juggling for a change.

July 23, 2010 at 12:15 PM  
Blogger Ponita in Real Life said...

Are they Scottish Russian guys??? I didn't know they wore kilts in Russia....

Sounds like a fun time! I like shows like that once in a while.

July 23, 2010 at 12:56 PM  
Blogger Eryl said...

Anyone who can juggle tutus and pizzas is worth a couple of hours of my time.

July 23, 2010 at 4:49 PM  
Blogger Everyday Goddess said...

Sounds like fun, plus I love guy's in kilts. Seriously.

July 23, 2010 at 4:58 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

kykn: Another in a long series of apt metaphors from SA.

Ponita: They're AMERICAN! It's all part of the act. Sometimes, I think I work to hard to entertain myself. It's refreshing to see something that's pure fun.

ES: I'm not kidding -- these guys have superhuman skills. You have to see it to believe it.

EG: I often thought I'd look rather dashing in a kilt but never had the opportunity.

July 23, 2010 at 5:52 PM  
Blogger Pueblo girl said...

This kind of theatre I could enjoy :)

Me too, with the right attitude (second from left has it perfectly), skirts look good on men.

July 23, 2010 at 9:03 PM  
Blogger mapstew said...

I love this kind of entertainment.
And I wore a kilt for nigh on 20 years! (Ponita has seen the photies, and I don't mean the ones Jimmy tried to blackmail me with! Heaven forbid they ever make their way into the public domain!)

And you get to see Jean-Luc Picard in person? Bastard! :¬)

July 23, 2010 at 10:02 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

PG: This show is so joyful and has such broad appeal, I can't imagine anyone saying, "Well, that was boring."

Map: Can't you post the photos to your site? Cut off your head if you don't want to be identified. I saw Capt. Picard in HAMLET on Broadway and in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA on the West End. Remember, he's also Professor Xavier. That guy has got some range!

July 24, 2010 at 12:11 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hey, Zossima Karamazov here. Glad you had such a great time at the show, and thanks for spreading the love. It's always rewarding to hear reports of people who really get into it.

http://www.4playtheshow.com/ for more info, if the rest of you wanna check it out.

July 24, 2010 at 10:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

would LOVE to see this... i juggle just enough to appreciate how hard it is to do very well.

as for the kilt? get one. several of my friends wear them - often in conjunction with the local celtic festivals.

http://www.utilikilts.com/

July 24, 2010 at 3:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great stuff!

( tiptoes quietly away to put her apple, lemon and candle back in the fruit bowl...)

July 24, 2010 at 4:39 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

"Stephen": Thanks for stopping by! My first celebrity comment. Nice work. I was second row center and more than a little nervous about the cleaver.

Daisy: I do a bit of juggling myself but never got past three small balls. Never mind pins and knives. You're right. You don't know how hard it is until you try. (That goes with everything, actually.)

MIT: Go ahead and toss all three into the air. You can't get hurt with those. Unless the candle is lit.

July 24, 2010 at 5:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lighted candles? No thanks. Learned my lesson with fire poi.

July 24, 2010 at 10:04 PM  
Blogger mapstew said...

FIRST celebrity comment?? ahem!

:¬Q

July 24, 2010 at 10:36 PM  
Blogger mapstew said...

@Stephen; thanks for the link, it looks like one amazing show! :¬)

July 24, 2010 at 10:38 PM  
Anonymous nursemyra said...

Mmmmm.... NICE legs!

July 25, 2010 at 4:26 AM  
Blogger CiCi said...

The video looks like something really fun for everyone in the family. If they go to southern CA I know my daughter and her family would like to see this.

July 25, 2010 at 9:35 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Map: Oh, shit! That's right! YOU were my first celeb. I stand corrected. Again.

TB: That's the beauty of this show. There are things that requires major skills that'll impress the adults, while holding the kid's attention.

July 25, 2010 at 9:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Roight, this is EXACTLY what I want to see when I'm in NYC in September.

July 25, 2010 at 1:49 PM  
Blogger Pat said...

Just the look of them gets my vote; that mournful crazy Mischa Auerer look(OK then you spell it)is hilarious.

July 26, 2010 at 3:24 AM  

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