Classical concert experience makes fine comic fodder
Colin Mochrie, centre, and the Second City troupe perform as Steve Reineke leads the orchestra.
The Second City Guide to the Symphony
★★★(out of 4) Starring Colin Mochrie, members of the Second City and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by Steven Reineke. Repeats March 7 at Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. tso.ca From late-arriving audience members to the usually nameless faces and instruments arrayed on the stage, little escapes the gentle comic prodding of the Second City comedy troupe at Roy Thomson Hall this week.
Marquee host Colin Mochrie and Toronto Symphony Orchestra pops conductor Steven Reineke turned the usual parade of serious programming on its ear with The Second City Guide to the Symphony on Tuesday night.
The orchestra was there and performing, but the multicoloured spotlights were on getting laughs, not the notes.
For the most part, Mochrie and the talented ensemble — Marty Adams, Matt Baram, Ashley Botting, Darryl Hinds and Allison Price, directed by Chris Earle — did an excellent job of making merry with the traditional concert experience.
Rather than presenting a straightforward guide to how a symphony orchestra works in the vein of Benjamin Britten, Garrison Keillor or even Sergei Prokofiev (in Peter and the Wolf), the Second City gang has woven together sketches that are as much about the audience as classical music-making.
The Second City Guide to the Symphony has been performed in Toronto and has toured North America for five years now, yet the show still feels fresh and current.
Maybe that’s because ushers will forever be trying their best to manage latecomers, and patrons will continue to cough or unwrap candies during the quietest part of any concert.
And other stereotypical situations refuse to go away, including the husband or boyfriend being reluctant to go hear classical music.
These all make for fine comic fodder.
Second City upped their game with audience participation, including turning all of us into a makeshift band.
They also pulled an improv sketch out of their comic arsenal, making up songs accompanied by TSO players, as well as dialogue inspired by an audience suggestion.
Any learning to be gleaned be- tween the giggles came from skits like a catalogue song of the tragic lives of famous composers, to Gustav Mahler being asked to write an ad jingle for Levi Strauss jeans.
Yes, the TSO did get a couple of opportunities to shine on its own. Ironically, it was in two well-known opera overtures, one from Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka and another from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, introduced by Mochrie as “The Barber of Figaro.”
But the showstoppers were less classically inclined, including Adams coming out in Gene Simmons drag to do a guitarshredding parody that substituted a flute for an axe.
“It don’t get sexier than this; I wanna touch my flute,” Adams sang.
Classical music is anything but sexy in many people’s eyes, but Second City made sure that the gathered crowd found it funny, and that’s no mean feat.
There were two repeat performances scheduled for Wednesday and one on Thursday night, for anyone who wants to chase away the late-winter blahs with a heady dose of laughter. Classical music writer John Terauds a freelance contributor for the Star, based in Toronto. He is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @JohnTerauds
is Second City upped their game with audience participation, including turning all of us into a makeshift band.