Second City may have served as a stepping stone for many famous actors who moved on to be on “Saturday Night Live,” but Second City’s performance at Augustana made “SNL” seem like a step down.
Green Co., one of three touring companies, delivered a hilarious set of both comedic scenes and improvisation games.
Their comedy tended to bridge onto the satirical side, focusing on current issues.
In one of the scenes, the cast actually brought a male member of the audience on stage to pretend to have a gay wedding, to address some of the stereotypes about being gay and probably to embarrass the audience member that they pulled up.
Thankfully, he played along and the scene ended up being incredibly funny.
Compared to last year’s company that performed, this group was incredibly more musical and would often sing their own, made up songs, such as one song that had to do with killing everyone that was not “cute,” which obviously bordered a little on the creepy side.
One of the group’s more satirical skits that they performed was played by cast members Rachel LaForce and Chris Redd.
The pair played an interracial married couple and played off the different issues that have come up culturally, like the idea that black men are “scary.”
While Second City’s planned scenes were hilarious, the improvisations that they had to perform were not quite up to par.
While at times they offered a chuckle or two, they were not quite on par with how hilarious the planned out scenes were and, at points, lasted too long.
One scene in particular involved the two female cast members drinking at a bar while having to incorporate lines that the audience gave to them. Needless to say the “odds” were not “in their favor” for this game, since this famous Hunger Games quote was one of the more ridiculous quotes that the actors had to try to incorporate into their scene.
While the actors did their best and actually did get a few witty one-liners into the scene, a part of me wishes that the group would just stick to the hilarious scenes that they already have learned since the actors are so phenomenal at what they do.
In one of the best scenes, the group sang a song about the future, in which they discussed both the positives, like the fact that the pronoun for a President might not always be “he,” and the negatives, like that technology is only going to take over people’s lives more.
Overall, Second City left having thoroughly amused the audience and me.
While their improvisations were not always hilarious, their scenes made up for any dull moments.