If you’re looking to find the funny in this year’s festival, you’ve got a cornucopia of options. Spoleto’s Solo Turns series has already showcased two of the most entertaining monologuists I’ve seen in years: Mike Daisey (The Ugly American) and Hazelle Goodman (On Edge). But Spoleto’s stuff tends to be too highbrow to really bust a gut over (those two were happy exceptions); all the real laughs come from the direction of Piccolo Spoleto’s several theatre series. And among those, the heavyweights are Second City, back this year for at least their seventh or eighth consecutive Piccolo appearance, and the new kids on the block: Theatre 99’s Piccolo Fringe at the American Theater, which features not just hometown faves The Have Nots! (who produce the whole shebang) but some of the biggest hitters from around the country, too, including Jack McBrayer, Chicago-based musical-theatre improv masters Baby Wants Candy, and New York improvisers Upright Citizens Brigade.
If Second City is Chicago’s claim to national comedy fame, then UCB is New York’s. I thought it would be interesting to catch the two group’s performances in a single afternoon and do a little compare/contrast. Second City was first up, over at Physicians Auditorium. The six-person tourco did a little improvising, but the bulk of the two-hour show featured prepared, rehearsed skits, some of which had the matinee audience in hysterics, others of which landed with a dull thud (of these, one particularly comes to mind: a skit in which God awakens from a binge drunk begun on his post-Creation “day of rest” to find Jesus was trapped on Earth for 33 years without any way to get back home to heaven, stalling for time by “making shit up,” finally killing and resurrecting himself out of desperation; I was laughing, but I sounded like a lunatic in a mausoleum). Other efforts met with more success; a bit where a male character blew into the foot of a limp female character until she slowly stiffened to become a blow-up sex doll, mouth open in an “O” and arms outstretched, was one of the afternoon’s biggest, and simplest, hits. But in the second half they tanked with an interminable improvised skit about a public radio program on spiders, which bored for nearly 15 minutes. The Second Citiers also seemed to have low energy on Friday; maybe it was the matinee audience, which was surely not in the same spirits as the group’s usual 9pm crowds, who are half drunk to begin with.
An hour later, at the American Theater, I caught a 6pm show from Upright Citizens Brigade. (I noticed this was the first Piccolo Fringe show I’d been to this year that wasn’t sold out; the place was about three-quarters full. Though I did hear that the Have Nots! show following it had been sold out all day.)
The first half of UCB’s show was a 30-minute sketch about a Christian Youth Camp meeting hosted by two typically cheeseball reformed and ‘born-again’ former sinners, who try to relate to the youthful Christians by talking ‘hip’ and using cornball catchphrases like ‘Christicanity.’ One of the speakers was, of course, the former lead singer of the Buggles, who wrote the very first MTV music video tune “Video Killed the Radio Star.” It was sidesplitting, eye-wiping stuff, top professional grade. (Although I can guarantee that if they performed that skit at every show, angry letters would be pouring in to the Piccolo office and local op/ed pages; they came down vastly harder on Christian types than even Second City had in their skit.)
The second half of UCB’s intermissionless 60-minute show was pure long-form improv — but what improvising this was. (A citywide weed drought had four friends attacking a fifth friend who arrived with a tiny bud; seeing there wasn’t enough to go around, they drilled a hole in his head and, since he was already high, smoked him. Naturally they inhaled some of his memories, too. “Man, I didn’t realize what a depressing life he’s had.” “That’s what I call a paper-thin optimism.”)
Upshot: the Second City gang, who are no slouches, couldn’t touch what the UCB guys were pulling off. Not yesterday, anyway.
After leaving the SC performance (an earlier one than you saw), I encountered the troupe in the courtyard outside the auditorium doing an after-action review. I sat on one of the benches and listened (if they had noticed me, I was prepared to offer compliments and point out a slight script problem with “Beast Exam”). It was impressive how professional and detailed their manager’s criticism was: missed marks here and there, suggestions to punch up dragging bits, changing the destination for the daytrip in the “20 years later” skit etc..
I was a very interesting scene. On the one hand, I’m glad they take their craft so seriously and strive to improve, on the other hand, it was a little aback-taking to see them approach comedy like a group of actors playing parts. I can’t imagine seeing a pure improve troupe have a discussion like that.
Comment by Ted — June 6, 2005 @ 3:48 pm
I’ve done a lot of improv in the San Francisco and Seattle areas and just about every group I’ve worked with (I’ve worked with about a dozen as a lighting improviser) does “notes” after a show. Different groups have different styles but they often go through the show scene-by-scene and talk about what went right and what went wrong. This happens both with students and with improv troupes that have worked together for almost two decades. It’s serious dedication to a craft in which even the masters still learn from every show.
Comment by Joe — June 23, 2005 @ 12:38 am