Determined not to allow today to be a total wash out (see last post for the definition of a wash out), I decided to make my way across town to the Second City theater, which is basically a comedy club. The journey was easy, and with a quick walk from the subway station, I was there early even though I was worried about leeeeaving at 7pm for an 8pm show.
The place is quite small and quaint in a typically comedy club way. I don't know what it is, but the idea of a comedy club comes with its own aura, and this place had that. John Candy and others used to walk the boards in Toronto, though I didn't spend enough time figuring out if he did so at Second City. It had that kind of feel, though.
The seating was scrunched in tight around some small tables, and hosts/hhostesses mill the tables and get you drinks etc. You are meant to pay the girls at the end for anything that you get, and I had a long island iced tea which was very lemony. Armed with rennies though, I was fine.
Then the tweeting started.
I should explain that they didn't really do very much twittering at all. They were using it as an initial vehicle for a cheesy song about how we are all connected to eachother with our mobile phones. They then took us through various satirical sketches.
They did everything from a meteorite impacting Tehran - "Should we tell them, or should we send the information to them by normal mail"; "Can't you see how many problems a meteorite impact on the middle east would solve in one go".
They had other sketches that were just silly in the extreme. They had one where two of the cast were pretending to be 70s cops, and the brilliant indian actor in their troupe called Anand was playing this ridiculous jittery, dancing thug with a mullet the size of Cher.... The two cops would face off in increasingly in your face poses, in a test of manhood - rooky versus old timer. It indeed almost became a test of their real manhood as the grapples and facing became ever closer as they decide how to defeat this quirky bandit... Eventually, one of the actors starts giggling, and eventually - once they compose themselves, it turns out that it is the gun that causes people to act in this way. When the cop asks the bandit for the gun - in an accidental stroke of genius -= he too starts dancing around, waving the gun at the bystanders. It was all done in such a silly way, yet in a way that was deliberately funny...
They also had a sketch - introduced by Anand - of "white people acting racial stereotypes". They went from one nationality, each introducing the next as the neighbours that saw them moving into a new neighbourhood, and the people on stage wondering what the established residents thought of them. Each time, the established residents were a different reacial group, but the descriptive element was always adjusted so that the sterotype applied to the new residents was always told by the established residents in a slightly different way. The female actresses depiction of a chinese woman walking into her kitchen was a spot on stereotype
I could go on. It was a brilliantly observed piece. Their depiction of computer technical call center people in India was lethal, in both directions. They had pieces on relationships, and on normal behaviours of people, like moving seats to find extra space away from people you are sat next to on the subway when a seat elsewhere becomes available.
It was a really good show, and a good night out. It didn't matter that I was on my own - everyone was creased with laughter.
One of the guys looks identical - almost - to the british comedian David Mitchell from That Mitchell and Webb look.
I'd go again. I tried getting a souvenire - a little badge with an angry twitter bird - but they had sold out. Maybe I can get one online.
If I was rating this, I'd give it 8/10.
Glad I suggested it since you had such a good time!
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