The Richard Brothers were kept from the previous Splash.

The Richard Brothers - Ricardo, Manuel and David, have been performing together since they were nine, seven and five respectively. Born into a family of Mexican circus performers ranging from trapeze artists and clowns to dancers and jugglers, their training in the art of entertainment began very young and very early.

Their father had them up at 5:00am, and kept them busy with everything from contortions designed to increase balance and flexibility to hand balancing, acrobatics and of course juggling until 8:00 at night. Their meals consisted of special foods to build their strength and increase their performance ability: raw eggs blended with orange juice, and thick slices of raw onion doused in fresh lemon juice.

He identified their talents and picked their best routines. He taught them to combine their juggling with music, comedy and dance; to improvise and adjust their act based on audience reaction. He educated them in the intricacies of building an act in the tradition of the famed "Magico Italiano" with which they toured.

A non-traditional circus, Magico Italiano performers work on a stage - with curtains, a fly loft and such, like the majority of showrooms in Vegas - as opposed to a dirt floor ring. There are essentially no animal acts and all routines contain some element of music hall/vaudeville entertainment: dancing, acrobatics, rapid-fire yet precise delivery, of if nothing else, comedy.

In vaudeville tradition, at the Riviera, The Richard Brothers perform in front of the curtain while the stage behind them is being set for the next Splash dance number. Furthermore, giving the audience only the best of their best, their entire act totals a mere ten minutes. From the moment they hit the stage they are on. As they put it, "Our act has to be perfect. There is no room for error and no time for mistakes."

Each brother has his own specialty, and they are the foundation of their performance. David juggles boxes: flipping them, spinning them, keeping them in perpetual motion. Manuel throws hats, handwoven from banana leaves in Mexico, into the air such that they boomerang back to him in quick succession. Ricardo races back and forth across the stage catching around his neck rings that Manuel throws increasingly faster and farther apart.

True to their training, however, their act is always changing. "We are always trying new tricks," they explain. Sometime planned, others pure improvisation, but always gauging the audience's reaction to determine if it stays or goes. Listening to the music on the radio, in movies, or on television, they are always seeking out new sounds from which to juggle.

It is the vaudevillian presentation of their skills however that has audiences in riotous laughter and coming back for more. David's box juggle routine culminates in a hilarious moment of physical comedy and the three brothers doing the Can-Can. Manuel's hat throwing routine evolves into a show of ambidexterity and raw juggling talent as they move four hats among themselves while moving back and forth across the stage at a full gallop changing the direction of their throw with the reversal of their direction of movement. Moreover, their combined juggling of three clubs while cleverly moving a hat and cigar amongst them is unforgettable.