Second City’s Red Scare

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Through the courtesy and ingenuity of Denver Center Attractions, Chicago’s Second City’s Red Scare comedy review opened Saturday night at the refurbished Garner Galleria Theatre at the Denver Center for Performing Arts Complex and is a 100 percent total unadulterated winner in the comedic and performing department.

Red Scare, so well performed with sharp timing, slides quickly and smoothly from one tantalizing sketch into another, rocks with pokes, jabs, and insinuations at the racial, political and social atmosphere of our culture. The truth is, it’s better by a long shot than Saturday Night Live has been since its inauguration.

Second City running in Chicago since 1959 trained and fine-tuned some of our better comediennes. There they learn comedy as an art, where timing is immediate, body language, precise, and pantomime deciphers its own distinction. For over 40 years, Second City has toured the world finding the sharp-edge to comedy, slicing straight through to the heart of whatever matter happens to appear on the plate.

And where does the title come from? From the political arena, from the red and blue distinction coloring our maps, underscoring separation rather than unity. By calling a spade a spade, this biting comedic revue promises to find unity in hilarity. Funny isn’t it, what comedy can do when it bites to the bone understanding what it means to be funny?

Although no subject is sacred, everything under the sun deserves scrutiny and gets it; they retain a sense of high caliber taste, decorum, sophistication, and class. Perhaps in some cases they could cut slightly deeper into today’s grinding issues. There is, however, a fine line between class and mean “grubbery.” It takes a wise comedienne to know the difference.

These people have class. They are also downright hysterical, so much so, many lines are lost because the audience laughs out loud over and over again.

Directed by Matt Hovde for the Galleria stage, with musical direction by Lisa McQueen, the six-member cast includes Samantha Albert, Dave Colan, Brendan Dowling, Anthony Irons, Beth Melewski, and Amber Ruffin. Having cut their teeth and sharpened their comedic edge through Chicago’s Second City, off shoots, and touring groups, their resumes are enormously impressive.

So what would happen, they ask, if in Hamlet, Ophelia had a gay friend to intervene as she contemplated drowning herself? The thought is hysterical enough, but the demonstration is down right rough and ready hilarious.

And what would happen, if Juliet when she discovers Romeo dead, readying herself to finish her life, if she had a gay friend to intervene? What would he say? What would he do? Shakespeare’s play would definitely have another ending. Juliet and he would end up going out to lunch and shopping.

These two sketches are so original it would be a blast to have a whole review on “what if” on all Shakespeare’s plays.

There’s the African American Festival in Boise, Idaho.

The take on the guy blowing up his ballooned rubberized “girlfriend,” only to have her spring a leak. Albert’s choreographed portrait of a deflated/ballooned doll should become a classic for want-to-be pantomimes everywhere.

The parents meeting with school officials over what is wrong with their son. Does he have ADD or ? No he is D-U-M-B.

With a talkative female doctor, there’s the breast exam and a woman’s flamboyant reaction.

In a business setting, they demonstrate how whites relate to blacks with juicy jazzy black lingo, to prove acceptance, while the blacks have no idea what is being said.

In hyper animation, Ruffin explains what they don’t tell you about having a baby.

Irons wears the persona of a black guy visiting Ireland encountering a leprechaun. We tend to think leprechauns know everything. Guess what? This one doesn’t.

The audience frequently gets nudged to ask questions of the skilled performers. Will New Orleans be chocolate? “Only on the outside.”

Second City did extensive homework on Denver to incorporate Denver localities into their sketches.

Who doesn’t enjoy entertaining out of town friends? But what if these once upon a time friends have grown in a different direction, and you discover this at the last minute? Yes, they love skimming the antique shops. Broadway would be a perfect place to take them, after church, except they aren’t church going people, and they are vegetarians, and they love trees and environmental issue. What? They love trees and don’t love God? And the more that’s probed, the more differences emerge, but there is one thing everyone agrees on.

What about the interracial couple who go to Starbucks and he is dead certain everyone is looking at them. This gives way to another opportunity for audience interaction.

Denver’s Red Scare production is only the second time Chicago’s Second City has taken a show from their mainstage transporting it directly to another theatre.

Second Stage knows something a great many comedy troupes miss: the importance of timing. All too many bleed out sketches for several minutes that are worth 20 seconds or less. There are hundreds of off the wall thoughts cropping up nearly every day tweaked by current events or real life experiences at the mall, at lunch, in the work place sprouting hysterically funny or at least point in that direction. Maybe they are only worth a smart run lasting a blink of an eye. All too many comedy sketches go on and on because they want to be on stage running head on into confusion because they don’t know where and how to stop. Saturday Night Live has been guilty of this for years. A very funny sketch turns into boredom simply because it is over filled with nothingness, running way beyond its shelf life. The original impact lost in the mish mash. Red Scare jumps in and out of situations quicker than a mouse can escape from a trap, escalating a surprise impact, reflexing stomach muscles.

Second City hones in on value time-wise where there is value, knowing when to quit with defining explosive hysterical punch lines while playing roller coaster leap frog on a Ferris Wheel of comic delight.

Following Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday performances, The Red Scare cast will demonstrate their expertise in improvisations soliciting ideas from the audience giving on-the-spot reactions. These sessions will last 30-60 minutes depending upon the material provided. Hopefully, some of the ides will be gleaned in rehearsal for addition into the show. The improvisational episodes are free for those not otherwise attending the performance, entrance depending upon available seating and a first come first basis. All of this depends, of course, on the number of people attending the performance not staying for this third act.

The Garner Galleria has been refurbished; most noticeably in the bar area where more room has been provided for customers, and more room for the bartenders to maneuver their way through customers and orders.

Red Scare runs through May 21, with the distinct possibility it could be extended. That would not be a surprise in the slightest.