Everything old is new again for talented cast in Second City revue
Watching the first act of The Second City's new show feels like déjà vu, which makes sense seeing how the phrase figures prominently in the title of the company's 104th revue, which opened Tuesday on the main stage.
“Fool Me Twice, Déjà Vu” is a brisk, often incisive if loosely connected compilation of sketches referencing pop culture, crime, technology, relationships and politics written and performed by Chelsea Devantez, Paul Jurewicz, Rashawn Nadine Scott, Sarah Shook, Daniel Strauss and Jamison Webb. The first act of the show opens with a time-travel skit set in 1990. From there it unfolds in typical fashion, with blackouts punctuating longer sketches, some of which fare better than others.
But it's in the show's sly second act (the more interesting of the two), where things get interesting. It begins with the talented young cast repeating the first sketch almost verbatim. The next few scenes — also act 1 repeats — unfold in rapid-fire fashion as a kind of sketch-comedy collage. But that's where canny director Ryan Bernier and his company change things up in an unexpected way by recapping some of the first act sketches — which are tweaked, revised and served up from an alternative perspective.
For example, a restaurant scene in the first act involving Jurewicz's insistent toddler, Shook's overbearing mother and Strauss' scotch-swilling father is revisited in the second act with the now adult son presiding over a meal with his increasingly childlike parents.
Some sketches, like a sendup of a crime drama romance or Webb's socially awkward Starbucks customer trying to interact with Scott's barista, fall flat. Others fare better, including the one in which Devantez's deliciously bawdy housewife reveals to her family she's been doing standup comedy in the suburbs and using them as material, and another involving multitasking supermoms one-upping each other during their exercise class.
Sketches poking fun at entitled millennials and clueless male executives trying to answer for a lack of diversity in film and publishing ring familiar, but they are so well-executed, it doesn't matter that we've heard the jokes before.
A throwaway blackout in the first act about a police officer's son violently attacking a birthday piñata is revisited in the second act in a rather earnest (not to mention topical) scene, which finds a couple of officers discussing police brutality and how best to handle rogue cops who perpetrate it. In “Déjà Vu's” most poignant moment, Scott's community activist — referencing attacks against African-Americans — reveals the reality of a community where, too often, grief-stricken mothers are forced to stand helpless behind a police barricade while their children lie dead in the street.
Strauss is very good as an unsuspecting Jew who finds himself sucked into Christian pop culture, and quick-witted Jurewicz earns laughs at almost every turn. But in an outstanding ensemble, it's the newcomer Scott who stands out.
“Fool Me Twice, Deja Vu”
★ ★ ★
<b>Location:</b> The Second City Main Stage, 1616 N. Wells St., Chicago, (312) 337-3992 or <a href="http://secondcity.com">secondcity.com</a>
<b>Showtimes:</b> 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 8 and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday
<b>Tickets:</b> $23-$36
<b>Running time:</b> About 100 minutes, with intermission
<b>Parking:</b> Paid lots nearby and limited street parking
<b>Rating:</b> For adults, contains mature subject matter and language