If you weren’t one of the many people that packed the Ark Friday night, hopefully it is because you bought a ticket to Saturday’s show. If not, you may still have a chance to steal a ticket, or at the very least sneak in, because this show is not to be missed.
The typical set-up for all Second City shows is as follows: an even number of people in gender-balanced pairs (in this case, 6 people split into three men and three women). For the next two hours, this little comedy troupe puts on micro-skits, macro-skits, and improvisational comedy (including music!) for the audience to enjoy.
Although the gender equality was refreshing, the lack of diversity to offset the white cast led to much of the comedy being geared towards white suburban-class folks. Since this is Ann Arbor, I guess we can’t complain. Still, besides the occasional religious joke, the comedy focused on topics like quality education, gluten intolerance, and politics. Nothing on police brutality was mentioned, nor immigration, or anything about the Middle East save one joke in bad taste. Were they simply being respectful, or simply unable to come up with jokes in good taste?
One joke that stuck with me (along these lines): What is gluten intolerance? Something that upper middle class people have.
Let us not forget that these people are professionals. They have their skits and their tunes and their improv down to an art. At several points a cast member would ask the audience for objects, locations, or simply random words, and the rest of the cast would create an entire story out of that small premise. Just thinking about doing that on stage would make any mere human crumble–these people were grizzled veterans of the field.
It is always refreshing to see people unafraid to make mistakes or attempt to sing when they cannot sing. As the audience, we laugh along with them not only because of an executed joke, but because we also support their work. One cast member pranced around because he was half human-half Gargoyle. Not only were his antics hilarious, his acting was spot-on. I’m sure that’s what any half-Gargoyle youth would act…
My sole critique of the performance was the reliance on Ohio State Jokes. After spending three years in Ann Arbor attending the University of Michigan, I get it, people do not like OSU. Making a joke about Ohio becomes cheap and a way to make everyone laugh when you have run out of fresh comedy–this is why The Second City’s OSU jokes seemed a little stale. They heard or read in the news about the U of M — OSU Big Ten Rivalry so they made no less than THREE jokes about it. Come on guys, I already hear those jokes at least five times a week.
But disregard the last paragraph as the ramblings of an elderly man. Instead, see The Second City and become a happier person.
