Still flying after all these years

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December 15, 2002
BY MISHA DAVENPORT STAFF REPORTER

The Flying Karamazov Brothers want to let you in on a little secret. They
aren’t really brothers. Heck, they aren’t really even Russian.
The troupe, made up of Howard Jay Patterson (Ivan), Paul Magid
(Dmitri), Mark Ettinger (Alexei) and Roderick Kimball (Pavel), have
been delighting audiences for 30 years with comedy and juggling antics.
Their anniversary show “Catch!” runs through Jan. 19 at the Royal George Theatre.
The group is the brainchild of founders Patterson and Magid. The pair met while
students at the University of California at Santa Cruz in the ‘60s.
“Mono began the whole journey,” Howard says with a laugh.
“He got mono our freshmen year,” Magid adds. “All he could do is eat, sleep
and juggle. He became obsessed with it. When he finally came back to school
and showed me what he could do, I had to learn it myself.”
Both consider themselves first and foremost musicians. Magid says the
musical background is essential to good juggling.
“When we first started, we were hearing the juggling instead of seeing the
juggling. It opened our eyes. We see juggling as visual music,” Magid says.
“I find it hard to imagine juggling another way. Every toss happens in a rhythm.
Juggling is essentially rhythm,” Patterson says.
When the group is writing a new routine, Patterson even scores the material on
staff paper, so the juggling is a lot like a percussion score.
“I’ll use different lines and space on the staff to represent what you’re hitting or
what you’re not. The length of the note tells you how long the object is in the
air.”
They started calling themselves the Flying Karamazov Brothers in 1974. The
pair were hitchhiking across America on their way to various gigs when they
were picked up by two women in a van. One of the women, Mary Sullivan, was
the niece of variety show host Ed Sullivan. She asked Patterson and Magid
what their group was called.
“Howard was reading Dostoyevky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ at the time. The
book made a connection with us. We adopted the family name, but put ‘flying’ in
front of it because we thought it was silly,” Magid says.
A big break came in 1980, when the group first broke into theater. Chicago has
been incredibly vital to the groupnot just the Goodman, where the group made
that theatrical debut.
“From the various festivals and the comedy stage at Navy Pier, we owe a lot to
Chicago,” Patterson says.
And now a 30th anniversary tour brings them once again to Chicago. Patterson
says “Catch!” will be filled with a mixture of old and new.
“Audiences should expect to be surprised,” he says.
It really wouldn’t be a night out with the Brothers without their signature act, the
Gamble, in which Patterson bets a standing ovation to a pie in the face that he
can juggle any object brought by the audience.
Over the years, Patterson has juggled cow tongues, a sheep’s head (peeled),
and various animal livers and other internal organs.
The group has had to set some ground rules. Patterson won’t juggle anything
under an ounce (“You try juggling a rose petal,” he says) or over 10 pounds. He
also draws the line at juggling live animals or anything that might endanger him.
Even with the limitations, Patterson says he is still amazed by what people will
bring to the theater.
“When we first started doing it, I thought ‘What are people going to have with
them in the theater?’ I figured I’d juggle the occasional purse or umbrella. I didn’t
realize people would bring water balloons with nails inside,” Patterson says.
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The Flying Karamazov Brothers in “Catch!” runs through Jan. 19. Royal George
Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted. Tickets $36.50-$42.50. (312) 988-9000