PicksInSix Review: Do The Right Thing, No Worries If Not -THE SECOND CITY
“Big, Relatable Laughs at Second City”
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Kaitlyn Linsner
What if your parents held a town-hall style Q and A with you to try out this “communication” thing before their divorce? Funny premise for an improv bit, right? Now, how about when you’re asked by ensemble performer Evan Mills to raise your hand if your parents are actually divorced? Will this also be funny?
The answer is yes. It’s hilarious and for reasons beyond the obvious one, which is that Mills has an incredible talent to make vulnerability feel safe while producing big, relatable laughs in his hand-raising solo spot. The other reasons all relate to perhaps the best thing about Second City’s 110th Mainstage Revue. The show invites the audience into one of my favorite comedic spaces to be in - where the weird hits home.
The parents in the Q and A bit are played by Andy Bolduc and Kiley Fitzgerald. The two of them shine in handling audience questions, especially Fitzgerald whose quick, outrageous answers escalated this bit, and every other, ten-fold. In Wednesday’s show, these two got married in a penguin tank at the aquarium, Fitzgerald had an entire second family living next door and they argued over whether to bury a family member in the backyard. The jokes landed so well, and then the content lingers as you digest its applicability to your own relationship with your parents. Or don’t, as suggested by this show’s title, “Do the Right Thing, No Worries If Not.” You could just come to laugh and leave it at that, but if you want more, it’s there.
No matter the configuration, the performers have great chemistry on stage and often chuckle at each other’s jokes, which I love. They take us through well-paced sketches with the first half being slightly stronger than the second. Some highlights of the show include: where we see the cringey-ness of virtue signaling play out at a restaurant with non-binary performer Fitzgerald, where Claire McFadden offers to shrink up teeny-tiny for an invasive vibe check as an OB-GYN and where the audience participates in a great school detention scene led by E.J. Cameron as the teacher, Julia Morales as the absurd, doofy janitor and the rest as the school kids. Mills brings strong physicality into most scenes, and in this one he’s as an eye-rolling, slouched-over teen looking to impress his friends. Feel familiar?
Another key element to this show is the audience participation. The performers fed off the energy and worked the responses/suggestions in quite well. I am a big fan of any type of “new choice” improv game, and when they launched into that based on an audience suggestion of colors as emotions, we all witnessed some seriously good improv.
Overall, there’s much to see, experience and examine in this show all while getting in the good laughs I think we have all collectively needed perhaps without even knowing it. Raise your hand if that sounds like a good time? It is.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | KAITLYN LINSNER is a commercial litigation attorney in the Chicagoland area.
PHOTO|Timothy M. Schmidt
THE SECOND CITY
Presents
The 106TH Main Stage Revue
Do the Right Thing, No Worries If Not.
1616 North Wells
WEBSITE
TICKETS
(312) 337-3992(Box Office)
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