Second City reminds us of the ‘ humor in humanity’
In the weeks and now days leading up to the inauguration, it seems like the jokes about Trump and the current state of our political climate are basically writing themselves. Between rumors of golden showers and the president- elect’s meeting with Steve Harvey, it sometimes feels like we’re all living in one long political sketch. So where are comedians supposed to go from here?
The newest revue on the Second City’s E. T. C. stage, Fantastic Super Great Nation
Numero Uno, gets the requisite Trump humor out of the way early in a few entertaining sketches: a man who has been blacked out since the Cubs won the World Series comes to terms with the election results; seeing a reality star being elected president inspires former president Jimmy Carter to become a reality star; and a ship’s crew summons a kraken to captain their ship, going against the popular vote onboard. But it’s when the cast decides to steer away from the obvious and find the “humor in humanity” that the performers’ individual talents are used to their highest potential.
In light of recent incidents of homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, and prejudiced comments being hurled at Second City cast members and audience members alike, it was encouraging to see the cast fully embracing their ethnicity, sex, race, and queerness. Two of the standouts, Tien Tran and Jasbir Singh Vazquez, are charming in an early sketch that features them as a couple in a rowboat each speaking their native language ( Vietnamese and Spanish, respectively). Through their inflection and some great physical bits they’re able to connect with each other and with the audience even though very few people ( if any) understood both sides of the conversa- tion. It speaks to a larger message throughout the show: in times of political peril, it’s better to look for similarities in others rather than differences.
Later on, Vasquez once again speaks in only Spanish, pulling an unsuspecting Spanish- speaking audience member onstage for a sketch that ended up being about immigration policing. The audience member translated for Vasquez as he answered questions posed by two police officers ( Andrew Knox and Alan Linc) to prove he was American. Seeing the two strangers connect over a shared language was a delight. And in a musical number performed by the women of the cast, it was proven that perhaps nothing unites us more as a country than our mutual disgust for the word “moist.” Fantastic Super Great
Nation Numero Uno is by no means Second City’s most inspired or politically hardhitting revue. But what it does offer is plenty of silly fun— a semi- improvised scene featuring all the women of the cast on a The View- style panel talk show was particularly hilarious— and a chance to have a shared human experience outside of the current political circus.
Burn: The Nowhere Hotshots vs. the Brain- Plant From Beyond the Moon Writer and director Peter Storey taps into his personal experience fighting forest fires for this experimental sci- fi poetry thriller. An elite squad of first responders dubbed “hotshots” are called to action when a sinister sentient plant wreaks havoc across the world by hooking humans on a smokable drug called Queen. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus among the cast of what the drug does, exactly, and the 15 actors, often blocked to be onstage simultaneously, understandably appear preoccupied with the task of finding space on Gorilla Tango’s cabaret- size stage. The inherent Starship Troopers camp factor of the premise goes unaccounted for; instead, it’s treated as deadly serious, and grunted, sometimes flat- out inaudible readings don’t help matters. — DAN JAKES 1/ 19- 2/ 4: Thu- Sat 7 PM, Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee, 773- 5984549, gorillatango. com, $ 15.
Eurydice In this version of the Orpheus myth, Eurydice is driven to the underworld in grief out of longing for her beloved father. Ruhl wrote the play thinking about her own dad, who had died ten years prior, and the many ways sadness and longing can be far more compelling— indeed, more beautiful— then the life and love before us in the moment. Ruhl gives her heroine a complex subjectivity, rendering the myth anew, a story for a generation of women who want to understand themselves apart from men. It’s a fascinating exploration, but while there are strengths in this Promethean Theatre Ensemble production— most notably, Sandy Elias as Father— Ruhl’s script deserves a tighter, faster- paced staging in keeping with the light, playful elegance of her words. — SUZANNE SCANLON Through 2/ 11: Thu- Sat 7: 30 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Mon 1/ 23, 7 PM, Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. South port, 773- 935- 6860, promethean theatre. org ,$27,$22 seniors ,$17 students. Her America In Brett Neveu’s 2002 drama Eric LaRue, Kate Buddeke played a middle- aged woman psychologically battered by the condescending men ( and a few women) in her life. Her only relief came in identifying with her sociopathic school- aged son, convincing herself the students he slaughtered Columbine style deserved what they got. It was gut- wrenching. In Neveu’s new one- woman show, written for Buddeke, she plays another middle- aged woman psychologically
battered by the condescending men in her life, but this time she finds no relief. In fact her husband, after discovering her dark secret, sets the dogs on her and traps her in the basement. It’s a harrowing script, but under Linda Gillum’s direction, Bud dekeun characteristically pulls her punches for 70 minutes, seeming more inconvenienced and irritated than traumatized. Her performance entertains when it might horrify. — JUSTIN HAYFORD Throuogh 2/ 12: Wed- Fri 8 PM, Sat 2: 30 and 8 PM, Sun 2: 30 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773- 404- 7336, greenhouse theater. org ,$34-$48. Prelude to a Kiss Craig Lucas’s 1990 meditation on love and mortality needs a cast of strong, subtle performers to reveal its deeper tones; otherwise it comes off as a sitcom about two quirky lovers who fall into the kookiest mess at their wedding when the bride switches souls with a strange old man. Sadly, director Derek Bertelsen fills his revival with a bunch of loud, laughhungry actors who rip the heart out of the play ( but still fail to get laughs). Only Bethany Hart seems at home as the possessed bride— and her finesse makes everyone else seem that much more cloddish. — JACK HELBIG Through 2/ 4: Thu- Sun, 8 PM; also Mon 1/ 30, 8 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773- 404- 7336, the- comrades. com, $ 15-$ 20. R Priscilla, Queen of the Des
ert If news networks report a worldwide sequin and glitter shortage in the coming weeks, blame the evil geniuses behind Priscilla,
Queen of the Desert at Pride Films and Plays. When Sydney drag queen Tick, alias Mitzi Mitosis ( Jordan Phelps), is asked to drive his act in a van to far- away Alice Springs so he can finally meet his long- lost son, he cons his show partners Felicia Jollygoodfellow ( Luke Meierdiercks) and Bernadette ( Honey West) into joining him for the ragtag ride of their lives across the outback. This bejeweled and bedazzled jukebox musical, inspired by the Australian cult film of the same name, had a brief run on Broadway in 2012. Pride Films & Plays has put its seal to some brilliant new work of late, so inaugurating its new home on North Broadway with this barn- busting hero’s journey of three queens on the road to glory seems only right. Meierdiercks shines as Felicia. — MAX MALLER 1/ 17- 2/ 19: Wed- Sat 7: 30 PM ( no show Wed 1/ 25), Sun 3: 30 PM, the Broadway, 4139 N. Broadway, 800- 737- 0984, pride filmsand plays. com ,$10-$40. The Sundial Paul Edwards’s faithful adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s cunningly misanthropic 1958 novel strikes a shrewd balance between
grotesque absurdity ( Gloria, a teenage family visitor to the Halloran clan’s fading manse, sees apocalyptic visions in an heirloom mirror only when it’s smeared with olive oil) and droll menace ( the Halloran’s kleptocratic matriarch, Orianna, welcomes humanity’s extinction by turning into a midcentury Catherine the Great). While the uneven performances and graceless set give the production a persistent clunkiness, the coy spitefulness and well- tailored paranoia nicely evoke Jackson’s postwar worldview. And once in a while it does the soul good to ponder whether any quarter of humankind deserves to be spared from the fiery furnace. — JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 2/ 12: Fri- Sat 7: 30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 1/ 30 and 2/6, 7: 30 PM, City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773- 293- 3682, citylit. org, $ 32, $ 27 seniors, $ 12 students and military. R The Tall Girls A League of Their Own for Depressionera women’s basketball, this play by Meg Miroshnik ( The Fairytale
Lives of Russian Girls), directed by Louis Contey for Shattered Globe, melds feel- good teamwork and athleticism with the harsh realities and limited prospects available to women of the day. The show opens with Jean, played by a graceful Angie Shriner, getting off the train in rural midwestern Poor Prairie to take care of her cousin and bury her secrets. She meets Haunt Johnny, a basketball- wielding stranger played by Joseph Wiens, who soon signs on as basketball coach for the local teens hell- bent on getting “downstate.” The challenges of a time when the government wanted to curtail female athletics feel extreme but all too relevant— this is a play about “play” not as a luxury but as a potentially life- changing force. — MARISSA OBERLANDER Through 2/ 25: Thu- Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773- 975- 8150, theaterwit. org, $ 35, $ 28 seniors, $ 20 under 30, $ 15 students. Two Sharp Knives, Women, Politics, and Murder Dashiell Hammett stories get the gender- bending treatment in this Clock production, which bills itself as “theatre noir.” The politician/ contractor mysteriously murdered in the pulpy original is recast as a woman in CJ Chapman’s adaptation— same for the private dick on the case, and the detective sergeant, etc etc. This would all be well and good did it not lead to lines like “a simple case of she said/ she said.” The transition music, costumes, and lighting are a three- pronged assault of bad taste, and the only nod to traditional film noir is the deployment of a rather noisy fog machine. — MAX MALLER Through 1/ 29: Thu- Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, the Buena, 4157 N. Broadway, 800- 737- 0984, pride films and plays. com, $ 15. v