Such are the times that a performer at Second City can start to scream on that venerable comedy theater’s stage and, within the shake of a lamb’s tail, an entire audience has joined in without prompting. Screaming at what? Apparently that’s mutually understood, given our age of high anxiety.
That wordless moment alone would suggest that “Pandemonium, Please Hold” was a savvy title for Second City’s 114th mainstage revue, a neat encapsulation of how we poor suckers attempting to calm the chaos of our lives usually find only an irritating bot on the other end of the metaphorical or literal line, only pretending to help.
Among the many depictions of pandemonium in director Carisa Barreca’s deeply felt, highly entertaining revue? A whole slew of delivery robots, their low-slung contours replicated by human bodies with little flags, all running into things like lemmings leading us over a cliff, because we insist chicken fingers and secret sauce arrive rapidly at our door.
Comedy about artificial intelligence is difficult to pull off, but this company manages it nonetheless, with a sketch imagining a future A.I.-driven revue replete with performers who sound like the voice of the CTA after a lobotomy. I was roaring away at the e.t.c. alum Eddie Mujica’s hilariously dead-on depiction of a smiley bot talking through prompts with a nervous audience member when my tech-savvy friend in the next seat landed this truth bomb in my ear: “You do know this sketch won’t work three years from now, right?” he said. “The A.I. will be too good.”
God help us. But it works now, as did much else in a revue that is more formatively ambitious than some recent priors in this theater, and that delves deep into character work and complex narratives — over the years a hallmark of the best Second City revues. (I’ve not missed one in some 30 years, because this is Second City, highs and lows notwithstanding.)
The cast of this revue is filled with strong comedic personalities like Zoe McKee, Preston Parker and Yazmin Ramos, but there are two stand-outs for me.
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One is the returning cast member Bill Letz, half a rubber-faced Jim Carrey and half a snarling John Malkovich and, as that combo suggests, fully able to play silly and terrifying within a single beat.
The other is Cat McDonnell, moving up from the touring companies and very much in the Gilda Radner/Julia Louis Dreyfus school, even down to going cross-eyed on demand. McDonnell is a strong singer (actually, this is the most musical adroit revue here in years, despite the absence of the traditional old-school pianist). Her little song about the soul-crushing capacity of a job where the sole purpose is to create value for shareholders (which is lots of jobs) is truly the highlight of the show, because it’s so cleverly written and so deftly executed. And, frankly, kinda’ sad. The verse about what self-loathing can lie behind someone blurring their Zoom background really stayed with me. Not doing that again.
Overall, “Pandemonium’ is a very polished show, a descriptor that isn’t always fully applicable to sketch comedy but is important at this theater because the Chicagoans who recommend a night at Second City to their friends want them to have an abundant experience, distinct from improv or stand-up. Thanks in no small part to the shaping by Barreca (who I always admired back when she was on stage), “Pandemonium” delivers on that by probing anxieties large and small, mostly driven by personal experience.
I was especially tickled by a closely observed sketch wherein old college friends go to Mexico together and we get the guy worried about whether his friends really have Venmo-ed him, the friend on Ambien, even when she’s not, the friend who never felt included, and so on.
Blackouts are especially strong. We see a big guy doing a dance so wild and crazy as to jolt passersby. “You’re getting a little desperate, Governor Pritzker.” “But I’m running for president …”
Does everything work? Of course not. Does the huge burst of energy that gets the show moving feel sustained? Not always, even though it should. Is everything in the optimal order? I’d say some of the more emotional content, such as the kite-flying sketch featuring McKee in Act 1, would be better later in the show.
But those are all minor issues. Gorgeous little truths emerge throughout. The difficult experience, say, of being a much-maligned, childless Disney cruiser and thus the last priority for the lifeboat. Or, for example, being miserably single yet having discovered the best possible reason for getting married: “I just want someone to eat pizza with so I don’t eat a whole pizza.”
That’s a Sondheim-level truth, folks, in a super-fun, open-hearted and very funny comedic revue.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
Review: “Pandemonium Please Hold” (3.5 stars)
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When: Open run
Where: The Second City Mainstage, 1616 N. Wells St.
Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Tickets: $40-$85 at 312-337-3992 and secondcity.com