Playwright: The Second City ensemble. At: Second City mainstage in Piper's Alley, 1608 N. Wells. Phone: 312-337-3992; $20-$25. Runs through: open run
Can you believe it's been 50 years since the ensemble bearing the deceptively humble name of Second City changed the face of American comedy forever? Even today, its vision lives on in the generations of improvcom-wannabes taking up the challenge of skewering pompous speeches ( like this one ) with mockery generated in its entirety by those serving it up. But the long struggle promised by the president whose triumph was celebrated in the 2008 title, America: All Better, doesn't offer the range for satire supplied by old-fashioned conflict, and so the topics for the first post-Better show cannot help but seem rather tame by comparison.
The anniversary itself earns a retrospective nod or two: a 1959 holiday gathering in a brand-new bomb shelter where the guests haw-haw a future beyond imagination ( a Catholic president? Portable telephones? ) makes for easy hindsight laughs, while the timeline depicting prom-couples getting—respectively—kissed, stoned, laid and frisked ( each decade indicated by its background music ) pinpoints its observations with the smart ring of authenticity.
Such timely subjects as shoddy healthcare, mysterious diseases and menacing traffic cameras are still too much immersed in uncertainty to inspire line-in-the-sand stances, and the sketch involving a collegiate folk-singer who holds his audience hostage with the threat of his suicide never fulfills the promise of its premise. But the pair of latte-sipping, shorts-and-helmet-clad ( "They love it when you ride through Boystown" ) , bicycle-patrolmen offer wry and cogent commentary on the futility of their efficacy as agents of law enforcement.
Perennial problems fare better: the snoozing airline passenger who topples into his seat-mate's lap, the husband who would rather play with his electronic toys than listen to his wife. A cabbie ( portrayed by Brad Morris with just the right amount of surliness ) makes a case for the necessity of escalating taxi fares to cover the damage perpetrated by unhygienic customers. The most original episode of the evening, however, is a monologue, delivered by Shelly Gossman in the persona of a candidate for alderman, in which she pre-emptively disarms her scandal-seeking opponents by disclosing, with unswerving candor, a full inventory of her own potential dirty laundry. The sheer plausibility of this stratagem is the factor providing the hint of danger distinguishing Second City from its shrill imitators, and guaranteeing its success for another half a century.
