Playwright: Uncredited, multiple writers
At: Theatre Building Chicago,
1225 W. Belmont
Phone: (773) 327-5252; $12.50
Runs through: Jan. 25
With 88 performances by 55 groups from across the country, the second annual Chicago Sketchfest offers something for everyone. Since each group comes and goes in a day or two, this review is after the fact. However, that isn't enough to stop this old critic from offering observations on the opening night as a representative sampling of the wares. Nonetheless, the best way to enjoy Sketchfest probably is to attend at random, since each evening offers four or five different groups.
Contemporary sketch comedy lies somewhere between improvisation, the traditional scripted revue and TV comedy. Most—but not all—of the performing groups utilize some improv in creating their material. Most—but not all—material is created by the actors rather than non-performing writers. Beyond that, there are few definitions for this still-evolving genre and a wide range of approaches, as demonstrated by the three groups I saw the first night.
The Chicago group, Brick, opened Sketchfest, with a non-Harold type Second City revue, combining longer scenes with blackouts. Indeed, too many blackouts for my taste, a black-out being a one-line joke and not a true sketch. The two men and two women had some good ideas—a voice recognition phone system that acts like HAL, an executive who dictates written responses to spam e-mail, a balloon kids' TV character—but they were done in by flabby direction, slow pacing and too often by lame endings. Indeed, all three groups suffered from the Saturday Night Live weakness: an inability to write a button—that is, a sharp, strong ending—to each scene.
The second group, three guys from Los Angeles calling themselves The Class Project, offered a thematic revue with longer scenes (no blackouts) and some off-beat takes on people, a caterpillar and a goldfish out of place in the world. All three guys did drag at various points as well as some good physical work. As with Brick, the dynamics of the set were undercut by poor pacing, with slow scenes spilling the wind from the sails generated by the previous scene.
The third group was the two-man team of Hoskins and Breen from Portland, Ore., which seemed to have a following among the audience. In addition to being clever (all three groups were clever), Hoskins and Breen also were imaginative and the best actors. Riffing on themes of religion, ritual and faith, they offered Stone Age men inventing the word 'fuck,' Johnny Cash as God, archangels Gabriel and Raphael as cops on patrol, and good wordless mime work. They were well-paced but two scenes too long.
The Sketchfest program doesn't identify individual players, nor do they introduce themselves during curtain calls. They should.