You could tell the Flying Karamazov Brothers were in town Thursday night from the juggling pins and balls, signs, rotten pumpkins and one very interesting gourd flying through the air above the Lied Center stage.

As if that weren’t impressive enough, most of the time, after these objects flew across the stage, one of the members of this premier juggling troupe caught them and sent them flying again; however, Thursday’s performance showcased the troupe’s jaw-dropping array of talents beyond throwing and catching things.

The Karamazovs’ current show is “LIFE: A Guide for the Perplexed,” created in response to Dmitri’s (Paul Magid’s) midlife crisis. Guided by a giant “Book of Life,” the Karamazovs wend their way through a series of routines full of bad puns, Gumby-like choreography and mind-blowing juggling.

The venerable troupe owes much to the traditions of vaudeville, carnivals and renaissance fairs. For example, a standard sketch is “The Champ,” – portrayed by group founder Paul Magid – who comes out in traditional “strong man” attire and attempts to juggle three objects brought in by the audience. If he juggles them for a count of 10, he gets a standing ovation; if he doesn’t, it’s a pie in the face. On Thursday, Magid was presented with the aforementioned gourd, pumpkin and sign. Despite hilarious attempts, he tasted meringue. The audience didn’t seem to mind.

The Brothers occasionally stopped all sketches and circled one another, tossing pins back and forth with astonishing accuracy. These games culminated in the tour de force of the night, a pin-throwing-comical-dialog-riff that had the audience gasping.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers performed Thursday evening at the Lied Center.

A Karamazov Brothers event is also characterized by the wide variety of talent they exhibit as musicians. Mark Ettingerr (Alexei) led the group in playing everything from tin whistles to euphoniums, guitar to piano. In astonishing examples of dexterity and command of right-brain/left-brain combinations, they joined together to play instruments and juggle at the same time.

Many sketches seem a bit like bad camp skits, and although they are aimed at a family audience, much of the humor flies close to the edge. Children see funny men dancing around in silly costumes, but adults will experience social satire, political jibes, an astonishing but hilarious skit about human conception, and enough cultural and historical allusions to fill a Western Civilization textbook. Kansas and its evolutionary controversy took a hit, as did the war in Iraq; however, the brothers stopped short of preaching or riding hobby horses. (Actually, they did find a balloon-animal horse to ride.)

Particularly fun was a musical version of Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man,” performed by Dmitri, Alexei and Ivan (Howard Patterson) while Pavel (Roderick Kimball) worked his way through an increasingly complicated juggling routine.

One leaves a Flying Karamazov Brothers performance asking oneself, “How do they do that?” as well as realizing that one has just seen a magical, funny, amazing display of cooperation and trust.

– Sarah Young is a lecturer in Kansas University’s English department. She can be reached at youngsl@ku.edu.