“Fate is coming for you like a Jehovah’s Witness,” warns Second City’s 99th main-stage revue, South Side of Heaven, “and you just can’t pretend you’re not at home.” One-third standard Chicago references, one-third current events, and one-third appeal to the inevitable, this smart show is as tenacious as destiny itself but a lot less annoying, delivering rapid-fire comedy with the company’s signature finesse.
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In the first sketch, Holly Laurent encounters Sam Richardson’s Barack Obama in a dream. The president pegs Laurent as a “pale” Chicagoan, and she admits she didn’t vote for him—though she also disliked his predecessor. She’s “conservative, not retarded,” after all. The point? “Fait accompli,” as both characters put it. Obama can’t win for winning: he got dealt a shit sandwich when he assumed office, but what’s done is done.
The first Second City show Billy Bungeroth has directed since last year’s critically acclaimed E.T.C. revue, The Absolute Best Friggin’ Time of Your Life, South Side displays his attention to musical accents and memorably cartoonish transitions. Whether they involve literally sweeping away the n-word after the baseball sketch or mopping up blood following a furniture commercial gone awry, passages from one sketch to the next are not only seamless but often offer their own meta-commentary.
