War! Now In Its 4^th Smash Year!

Second City

1616 N Wells St, Chicago, IL

http://www.secondcity.com

 

Five words: this show is very funny.  Echoing the rest of the audience, I laughed my way through almost all 90-minutes of it.  War! Now In Its 4^th Smash Year! is Second City’s 93^rd revue.  As in most of their revues, the skits are loosely based on a specific theme.  At first glance, one might think that the theme for this show is the Iraq war, which no doubt could produce a number of bittersweet comedy sketches (and indeed, does in the production).  But in a grander arc, this revue is based on the seemingly noble art of lying and spin – involving not just the administration and its war, but also relationships, parenting, gay marriage, evolution and immigration.

 

The show opens with a father relaying to his daughter that there never has been a tooth fairy or Santa Claus or Easter Bunny; that they are all lies created by parents to keep their kids occupied and easier to manage.  The rest of the troupe steps in to accentuate the twisted logic that lying is not bad as long as there’s a reason.  Most of the following scenes humorously magnify this mantra.

 

Notable comedy bits include a group of Iraqi women that challenge each other, despite their animosity for the United States, to choose one thing from American culture that they envy.  Instead of selecting our country’s freedoms and prosperity, who would have known that these Iraqi women dreamed of having a dog that they could dress up in designer clothes and a sleep-number bed?

 

The best bit of the show closes the first act.  It is a delightfully ingenious song about gay marriage.  Explaining that gay couples cannot marry because it will destroy the sanctity of marriage, the cast delves into those marriages which actually are legal and sanctioned by the state, including a woman marrying a 98-year-old serial-killer still in prison. Talk about sanctity of marriage! Though not star singers, the cast pulls off the song wonderfully, punctuating the non-stop witty lyrics, complete with R & B-induced choreography.

 

All six members of the ensemble are very experienced and talented.  Brian Gallivan masterfully represents an offensive government-sponsored white slave program, created by the administration as reparations to African-Americans.  Molly Erdman deftly explains her answer to the country’s swelling illegal immigrant population – send them to Canada (singing the Evita-inspired “To Canada”). Claudia Michelle Wallace is priceless in her rendition of America’s most-prolific hip-hop video performer, the Video Ho (she also wins over the crowd portraying Oprah as a modern-day Moses, parting the Dan Ryan Expressway in order to make her commute home more palatable).  Ithamar Enriquez easily embodies such varied characters as a Mexican immigrant extolling the many virtues of rice and beans, to a brown ventriloquist with a white puppet (the team bearing the corny moniker of “Beige”).  Joe Canale is at top form portraying a sexually aggressive Benihana table chef.

 

The best performance of the evening belongs to Jeff-nominated Maribeth Monroe.  Ms. Monroe adroitly plays all her characters with perfect timing and endearing facial contortions, from her portrayal of a mentally-challenged student at a lecture on evolution, to encapsulating the entire Department of Education as a cabaret singer, singing to the administration the caustically funny refrain “Hey big spender, spend a little money on me!”. 

 

A shout out must be made to Ruby Streak, the company’s masterful music director, now with the company an astonishing 29 years.  How much fun could that be??  (though I’m sure there’s times when she’d rather be home watching “American Idol”)

 

Reiterating the theme of the show, the cast leaves us with an up-tempo comic song, instructing us that it’s nobody’s fault for lying – it’s our fault for believing.  Amen.

Second City, now in its 47^th year, is a true Chicago institution, spreading its reach through additional troupes in Toronto, Las Vegas, Detroit, Los Angeles and Denver, The company rightfully claims an impressive list of alumni, including Dan Akroyd, John and Jim Belushi, Gilda Radner, Shelley Long and Bill Murray.  If you have friends or family visiting, I can think of no better way to show off the richness of this remarkable city than taking them to experience this party on North and Wells.  You’ll have a great time.

 

Rating: Recommended (3 stars)

 

Reviewed by Scotty Zacher

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