Second City’s How I Lost My Denverginity

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Second City opened with its second show at the Galleria Theatre nestled in the DCPA with How I Lost My Denverginity. These young talented artists have been combing through Denver for several months learning as much about Denver and the surrounding area as they possibly could absorb. They may have gained a great deal, but from the show they lost nothing.

(Front) Jenny Hagel; (Clockwise from left) Beth Melewski, Timothy Edward Mason, Brendan Dowling, Dave Colan, and Amber Ruffin in How I Lost My Denverginity. Photo by Terry Shapiro

In their opening number they vivaciously state they love being in Denver, but this is the nicest they are going to be all evening.

For some moments their nice place wobbled and even tipped, but they were never able to get out of the niceness. Sharp, crackling humor seems to have lost its way in the maze of so-called funny. Sharp two-edged swords have been replaced with butter knives to ensure our politically correct world doesn’t offend anyone or anything or any place.

Throughout the evening Dave Colan, Brendan Dowling, Jenny Timothy Edward Mason, Beth Melewski, and Amber Ruffin take gentle cat swipes at Boulder, the Broncos, John Elway, and Mayor Hickenlooper, but the cat swipes are neither un-nice, creative or original. Most of their routines and skits could be said of any metropolitan area. For some reason they find the newly developed Stapleton an interestingly amusing area, when there are several such development pockets spread throughout the metropolitan area. Racial comments, sex in the work place elevator are neither new, creative, unique or interesting any more. They have been done to death across the country.

Several times they took a stab at audience participation and improvisational material which flirted with originality but fell just short of being down right funny. By their own admission, audience members actually stumped the actors, and they missed some very funny choice lines that immediately danced through my head while the actors tried to be funny making excuses.

Their wanting for a double-edged sharp sword like tongues were too rounded with plastic smiles to cut through much of anything. Some of their skits begged to be cut off with a biting edge, but the biting edge couldn’t be found. Consequently, the skits flopped like a beached whale gasping for a quick end that never came.

The cleverest of the skits came with Hagel announcing she was Marilyn Musgrave promoting her most complex issue: sandwiches and having the right sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly was the absolute must for a happy life; ham and cheese had to go for a moral society. Hagel’s ability to mold herself to her characters is nearly legendary. She controls a natural God-given talent that should take her far into the honest comedic world. With Musgrave’s notoriety on her stubborn stance against the Gay world, her sandwich bit was an instantaneous hit, but from there on, it was downhill most of the way.

How I Lost My Denverginity left the feeling Denver was pretty much a non-entity and there wasn’t much interesting to delve into. Local politics were ignored; history was ignored, as well as the struggle for the cow town image to give way to its superficial sophistication. The ludicracy of the smoking ban was ignored while some businesses got absolution and others were creamed into the law. They hit upon the marijuana legalization of yes it is legal, no its not, yes it is.

Interspersed were some sharp one-liners tipping the nice plate falling short of turning it upside down.

Swipes at the mountains, which seemed ludicrous, stopping short of that part of the culture that moves into the wilderness area to be near wild life then complain that the lions, tigers, and bears, oh my, eat their garbage, break into their houses, and have Fluffy for a snack.

Racial skits aren’t unique to Denver, and could be preformed anywhere in the universe, and are, frequently. And yes, they can be funny, and yes they can fall into overkill. Racial situations do not define Denver.

A guy proposing to his girl at Applebee’s in the Stapleton development choked for direction. Proposals come in all kinds of strange and weird places, and Applebee’s is hardly strange and weird.

Their attempt to go after the Denver Center with previews of up and coming shows stretched back to high school class clowns looking for attention getting laughs.

Delving into the illegal immigration issue could have cut through the garble with all of the material and various opinions now running loose out of their cages, but it fell flat before it could even get out of the gate.

Directed by Matt Hovde, musical direction by Lee Stametz, and choreography by Claudia N. Carson, the actors demonstrate they all hold rich talent with sharp moves, appropriately placed stone chiseled expressions, and the ability to move quickly and smoothly from one skit to another. It’s the content that got lost in the shuffle. The content gluing the show together giving it rhyme and reason showed it to be more like mediocre school glue, which can be eaten, when super glue is demanded for strength, power, and honest laughability.

Hopefully Second City will continue to exercise their comedic ability, to sharpen their butter knife, to take another look at Denver, and to look for the funny amidst the metropolitan area breathing a unique air quality setting it apart from Anyplace, USA.