S.E. Barcus

By S.E. Barcus

Revue Review — The Second City’s Don’t Quit Your Daydream

When in Chicago, THE ‘must see’ thing to do is to check out whatever is playing at the comedy theater that has produced more comedians into our popular culture than any other theater in our history.  That would be, of course — without hyperbole — the world famous The Second City.  I mean, go to the Bean, be Ferris and check out Chagall’s ”Windows,” take the architectural boat ride, see the Cubs … all good — but The Second City should be near or at the top of that list.  Seriously.  (For a crazy list of folks who’ve worked there, see the last paragraph of this article.  If for some weird reason you still don’t know about SC, it will blow your mind.)

While Don’t Quit your Daydream might be the 111^th sketch comedy revue in their theater’s over 60-year history, somehow each show still feels fresh, like you’re “touched for the 31^st time” (as ensemble member Julia Morales might sing in her character with dyslexic-hearing, mixing up Madonna’s lyrics, and many others, in one of the sketches).  (HEY!  As someone with auditory-processing disorder, I am offended!!)  Oh yeah, contained herein are ‘spoilers’ … but not many.  Out of the, probably, >500 times you will outright laugh in this 2-hour show, I’m giving away maybe 5? … 10? … of the jokes.

Claire McFadden leads the ensemble in the first full sketch, and she, here — and often throughout the night — plays our ‘white straight lady’ for the evening.  (The archetype will always be Jane Curtain, for me!)  While this cast is thankfully very diverse, any ensemble in America still has GOT TO have at least ONE white straight man and one white straight woman … if for no other reason than to ridicule.  She is there, teaching kids about compassion.  Things obviously go awry causing her to completely lose her shit by the end, becoming decidedly NOT compassionate.  And after there is resolution, she ends the skit with the perfect punchline — way better than SNL writers usually give us.   Not that this review is about SNL, but the writing on SNL for decades, now, rarely seems to know how to end a scene.  Most of the time, they just sort of … stop….   Not the case with the vast majority of sketches at The Second City.  Again – you are amongst professionals here, the INVENTORS of improv comedy, from the Paul Sills-days of the 1950s, working with the likes of Ed Asner, Alan Alda, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, and Alan Arkin, to the present….  You are thankfully reminded — right out of the gate from that first sketch — that these guys know how to ‘wrap that shit up.’

From here, we experience what will be a re-occurring song, bookending the show, Maybe The Matrix is Right, sung very well – (actually in key, and with vibrato and everything!) — by ensemble member Evan Mills.  It is the song that will hit after intermission, and reprise once again at the end — like the rug that really ties the room together.  In this song, and throughout Daydream, the style and subject matter plays with the surreal, the magical – and for one moment, even a spoof of The Twilight Zone.  Basically, anything that is a little odd, similar to the logic of dreams, themselves.  And in between the sketches, the bizarreness continues with their rapid-fire segues/palette cleansers, from ensemble member Kiley Fitzgerald’s “Post-menopausal Barbie” and pug impersonation to Jordan Stafford’s kid, sliding slowly down a wall, knowing his mom’s gonna come home and kill him for forgetting to take the chicken out of the freezer to thaw (to the tune of Edith Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien).

The quickest and most recurrent (and most silly) of these segues is delivered by Andy Bolduc, in his role as some “One Punch Man” spin-off, the “Insuppressible-Dad-Joke Man!”   I won’t give away the bad jokes, but they are definitely dad-joke cringeworthy, and are made hilarious by being punctuated — not by a “ba-dum, psh” – but instead by sudden lighting changes:  lights-turning-red, loud rockin’ jams blast, with the characters receiving the punchlines as if they were bombs, literally being ‘blown away’ in slow motion.  Mills does this the best, blown away, slow-mo, like some anime character, arms all out-stretched-ridiculous, like some twirling, falling cat. This, by the way, is a classic Viola Spolin game, “the explosion game,” which she explicitly recommends in her director book be followed by the “slow-mo game.”  (Aw fuck it, I’ll give away one – “Soooo….   hey there, buddy, you here for a haircut?”  Dad: “NO!  Don’t make me do it!  I can’t help myself?!”  “Wh-  …  What’s wrong?  …  You don’t want a haircut?” …  Dad: “NO!!!   I want … them … ALL CUT!”  BOOM! Etc, etc.)

Going back to Spolin, an “imaginary friend” sketch (which felt a little Lars and the Real Girl) reprises with a variation of the “mirror game.” Both characters full-front, and Mills has to do everything McFadden does, as her puppet.  The transitions are wicked-fast, the segues absurdist, the movements gruelingly strenuous, yet these two are perfectly timed together, as good as the best of synchronized swimmers or ballroom dancers.  Mills, by the way, is also our singer, and a great physical comedian — and not just with his being blown away by the dad joke, or the mirroring, but also his ability to scooch and quiver around in a sultry way reminiscent of Chris Kattan’s “Mango”.  He also does voices very well, like his exaggerated “dramatic” accent, sounding like an early John Leguizamo (although, as he says in his song, don’t assume he speaks Spanish!). 

Also funny tonight was Fitzgerald’s “Cool Nun,” who knows what you kids are out there trying to do, and reminds you that thankfully you’re in Illinois — a blue state – so if things go awry, “you won’t be sent to jail for getting rid of those bits from when the penis drips”, to paraphrase.  You know, she’s a ‘cool nun.’  Fitzgerald knows how to play-up anything gross — and here, with audience participation, she makes it so funny that even anti-choice folks are probably laughing, if nervously.  (She breaks character and sorta razzes the audience with, “Hey folks!  That’s the political part of the show!  … Never heard it put that way before, did ya?!”)  This was probably the hardest-hitting political satire part of the show, so kudos to Fitzgerald and/or whoever wrote the bit.  It was a little uncomfortable, like the most meaningful comedy should be.  

Which is a slight critique.  While SC is hilarious, and their formula is like a secret sauce recipe for making laughter, they don’t seem to be quite as interested in ‘edginess,’ or deeply-divided politics.  Even in the other few sketches that pushed boundaries, like “Black Heaven” (with its spot-on racial tropes), they were, overall, just a little too safe, a little too fun, like your 11-year-old kid being silly for you — only with the occasional, “fuck,” thrown in.  You know … like … like … Canadian humor.  Professional as shit, 100% geared to make you laugh, doing as good a job at that as anyone, but not wanting you to feel uncomfortable. Seems like a business model; what sells the tickets.   SC seems to have become a ‘safe space.’  You are not going to get George Carlin or Dave Chapelle, or anything similar to their previous days when they had the REAL Abbie Hoffman appear on stage with them during the Chicago 7 trial (!!).  It’s not live TV, so it is essentially just a couple notches up from the otherwise fairly anodyne SNL.  …  SNL yuks — with a couple “fucks!”  … I get it.  People just wanna forget their troubles and have FUN!!  (Not that any of this is bad.  Just know what you’re getting into.  If you want great jokes, and to laugh your ass off, you will do so.  SC shows are ALWAYS worth the price of the ticket.)

THAT SAID, in a completely different, apolitical, manner, the other ‘most daring piece’ of the night involved Stafford, our other actor from from the earlier dyslexic-hearing college skit (Harvard!?  No, you mean Thurgood Marshall’s Howard, thank you very much).  Stafford does a one-man bit where he plays the son to a dying father, at times standing, then sitting, in both roles.  The father had been a smoker, has cancer, had a catheter that at times would burst, but he was still hanging in there, telling pretty funny jokes, if sometimes morbid.  The scene literally ends with the son looking at the empty chair saying, “I love you, dad.” And then Coltrane’s melancholic “Lazy Bird,” as lights go down.  (Oh man, you guys shoulda used Duke Ellington’s, “Daydream”!)  This brief sketch is not funny.  It was pretty damn heart-wrenching.  For a ‘yuk-yuk’ show to hit you with that in the middle of it, knowing full-well you’re all out there on dates, getting drunk, wanting to guffaw over some dick-jokes … that’s actually very daring.  Not sure if that was written by Stafford, but given he’s from “dope dope Detroit” in the billing, and that the dad character loved the Lions, I’m gonna say probably.  Was this an homage to the man who inspired him to become a comedian?  Dunno.  Whatever the background, this was an unexpectedly sweet, beautiful moment in the show.

Annnnnnnnnnd like any tear-jerker in a film, it is IMMEDIATELY followed by RIDICULOUS comedy-relief, so you don’t have to, you know, shed a tear, or something!  (SCREW THAT, I’m an American MAN!  “My eyes are just a little sweaty today….”)  Fitzgerald comes on as a horny mom who likes to make out and/or carpet munch all of her son’s school teammates.  (AH!  “SC State!”  I JUST now got that!  “SC” = Second City, duh.  I thought the friends were all supposed to be from South Cackalackee for a sec….)

Later, in another audience-participation bit, Bolduc plays a great vampire-meets-Igor-like M.C. of a ‘business-leaders conference,’ walking about through the audience in that slow, disturbing way that makes your anus pucker whenever he draws close (“OMG, please don’t call on me… please don’t call on me….”).  Bolduc’s accent, and slinking, was VERY Riff Raff from Rocky Horror Picture Show.  One audience member who he picked on turned out to be an insurance salesman, which led Bolduc to salivate, “YeeeeEEssss….   I see you are a brother in the dark arts!….”

Quick-returns to many of the better sketches are packed into the final reprise of our main song, and give a nice feeling of closure, and a chance for each actor to sort of get a final bow — but overall, felt just a little ‘cheap’.  Too easy.  They were clever, and all (the best for me had to be the game show, with the cast taunting the white guy, Bolduc, to say the N-word, with an unexpectedly hilarious callback).  But overall, simple callbacks make the revue feel more like it was written sort of like a stand-up routine.  Or sure, a revue.  But what I would love to see from Second City (sorry if I missed one in the past) is a really tightly themed and evolving revue.  Sketches contained within a larger structure, more like a play somehow, at least thematically, with inciting elements, antagonists/protagonists, rising stakes, climax, resolution, yadda yadda — but using nothing but sketches.  Not just some big “Harold,” though, and not a play.  I dunno.  Hard to describe – I’ve never experienced it.  Yet, if anyone can do it (or has done it), it is SC.   The Second City — I CHALLENGE THEE!!!  I would friggin die to see it one day.  I know the shows are “written” by the ensemble players, but we all know you don’t need the ‘unified voice’ of a single playwright or screenwriter to do this, because TV shows and movies have a team of writers all the time.  

This cast is very diverse.  Kudos for that.  Especially when you roll through the long, long, storied history of SC, and their hundreds of alumni over the decades.  (Very white.) And not just because it’s a good thing for a healthy democracy, but also … how on Earth was SC able to address identity politics in the past, without representation?  It’s mind-boggling how one-sided our culture has been for about 225 of the past 250 years of our nation’s history.  … Another thing, a ‘multi-racial’ cast (I know, there’s no such thing as ‘race’) also allows for sneaky plays on assumptions.  In one skit, the African American comedienne Morales plays the mother of white (European American) ensemble members McFadden and Bolduc.  They play the skit straight – within a totally unrelated, suburban household premise – until the punchline.  You’re sitting there enjoying the unrelated sit-com-spoof premise, assuming they’re using some sort of PC “color-blind casting” from the ‘90s out of necessity with such a small ensemble, and all, until – BOOM!  Morales, being driven crazy by her stupid kids, exclaims, “Man, I am sorry I ever adopted those white kids.”  Very funny.

Re: the Music Director — and I assume pianist? — Ryan Miera.  They need a shout out, as definitely contributing to the comedy, as well.  The piano pieces, whether sappy soap opera cliches trickling in the background, or honkey-tonk yee-haw bits – as well as all of the overhead music — get louder or softer, faster or slower, like a seamless dance partner to the players, cutting from a quiet track to a loud one, simultaneously with light changes, at just the right beat.  These added theatrical effects greatly enhance the overall show and humor.

Something one cannot write well about – or ‘spoil’ – is the physical comedy.  To describe it, and how hilarious the various contortions and movements were by each of these performers, would not do it justice.  You literally have to see to believe.  You have to see Stafford twist apart like a creature from The Thing, when he fears Rihanna might never make music again (was this insanity a little homage to Swarm?).  Or McFadden, dancing around as the wooden boy, Pinocchio, finding some cocaine and dry-humping fratboys….   Or Mills’ “sashaying away” as a ghost on the Soul Plane, or Bolduc failing miserably at trying to dance the Cupid Shuffle….  Not to mention the multitude of highly choreographed back-and-forths between the actors (or the straight-up-awesome pas de deux of Stafford and Mills). And that’s only about 1/100^th of just the physical comedy part of the show!  It will all just make you take a moment to breathe it all in and appreciate the amount of WORK done by these artists to get the show up on its feet.  (Not to mention the WORK needed to perform it at this crazy-high level of energy, eight times a week with only Mondays off….  Man, just kill me.)

One thing I imagine must piss off improv comedians is that people generally lump them in with stand-up comics who just tell jokes and stories.  Sure, some stand-up comics really get into characters and become those characters and even throw in physical humor here and there, but they are not acting.  Interacting with other actors.  The best improv comedians are trained actors.  Who have studied the art, from body movements to emotions to how to use and vary the voice to all the rest of the grueling training good actors go through to ‘master their craft,’ and present for us real, believable – if exaggerated – human beings.  While also interacting with a random audience, to boot!  Improv comedians are “real” actors – but even more!  They are essentially actors, and also witty, smart stand-up comics (more skilled than you at parrying and ripostes, so watch it, ya lush!). And often they can sing and dance, with skills that are accompanied by the aforementioned gymnastic-like choreography. And for the cherry on top — they are playwrights, as well! – only often writing “the script” in real time. … They are the Oscar Robertsons of performing artists. Well-rounded. They can literally do it all.  (If you ever meet them in real life, it is no wonder they are even more neurotic than your typical actor.  No offense, but improv comedians are EXHAUSTING to be around … probably because they are so EXHAUSTED! Incessant with the competitive, passive-aggressive repartee with each other…. I think I’ll recommend a specific diagnosis in the next DSM for these weirdos!)

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Hey gang, guess what I just learned?!  The Second City has never won the Tony Award for best regional theater?  Ever! (??)  …  I just saw the Seattle Rep ‘stoop’ to presenting contemporary circus – emblematic of the fact that it’s time the THEATAH community, including the Tony’s, become a little more open-minded and inclusive, as well.   I cannot believe one of America’s theater treasures, since the 1950s – born out of the work by one of American theater’s most famous and groundbreaking artists, Viola Spolin, and her “Theater Games” (up there with, and inspiring, Peter Brook’s Empty Space) has not yet won that award?!?!  Shame on the Tony’s.  And if the Tony’s won’t “evolve or die,” then someone else needs to step up.  How about the next Mark Twain Award go to The Second City, instead of just one person?  SOMETHING! 

The show was written and performed by the six ensemble cast members, above, and directed by Carisa Barreca.  Thank you to all of them, and to the never-disappointing, always-kickass funny, The Second City. 

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And now for your crazy VERY INCOMPLETE list of people associated with this theater company, mostly due to it launching their careers (including folks from the nascent Compass Players):  Alan Alda, Alan Arkin, Dan Akroyd, Ed Asner, Jim and John Belushi, John Candy, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Paul Dooley, Rachel Dratch, Chris Farley, Tina Fey, Dave Foley, Mary Gross, Abbie Hoffman (sorta ;), Keegan-Michael Key, Richard Kind, Robert Klein, Linda Lavin, Eugene Levy, Shelley Long, Elaine May, Jack McBrayer, Adam McKay, Tim Meadows, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Mike Nichols, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine O’Hara, Amy Poehler, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Joan Rivers, Horatio Sanz, Amy Sedaris, Martin Short, Jerry Stiller, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Yeun….   On and on and on, til the break of dawn.  (And check out their photos! Look how adorable these snarky folks were as 20-somethings!)

OK, so, Tony awards – get your shit together, already.

Copyright 10-13-23

Featured image: (Top, L-R) Evan Mills, Claire McFadden. (Bottom, L-R) Andy Bolduc, Julia Morales, Kiley Fitzgerald, Jordan Stafford. Photo by Timothy M. Schmidt.

S.E. Barcus is also on Facebook and YouTube.