Second City’s latest, ‘No Country for Old White Men,’ scores big, spinning off relatable, current issues

By Trent Modglin

Funny how the timing at these comedy revues at Second City can work sometimes. In the week prior to my invite to the opening of Second City’s 95th revue, “No Country for Old White Men,” I was criticized for not responding quickly enough to Evite invitations, joked with a woman about whether she received proper treatment from a mechanic and listened to a friend complain about what the porous real estate market had done to the asking price for his condo.

And by the time I left Second City that night, the versatile, cohesive crew of Joe Canale, Brad Morris, Ithamar Enriquez, Shelly Grossman, Amber Ruffin and Emily Watson had addressed all of these situations, among many others, generating laughs from the realms of politics through YouTube, health insurance that “doesn’t cover injury or illness,” sketchy parenting, immigration, technology’s impersonal side, office drama and even hippies invading the lawn at Ravinia.

Our national anxieties over just where we stand in an unstable, changing world are often — and wisely — the focus of “No Country.” The bits are clever, laughs plentiful, timing exquisite and lulls nonexistent.

Arguably the best skit of the revue didn’t exactly deal with a new topic for comedy —that being mechanics’ propensity for taking advantage of naive female customers — but its style of approach was fun and surprisingly refreshing. Three different women take turns approaching the service desk and receive the inevitable bad news about some questionable (and expensive) repairs that are needed. Ever hear of a tear in your strut girdle? How about a problem with your pump rod? Well, if these women want to be able to brake in the rain or merge into traffic, the service desk attendant and Iggy (Enriquez), the mechanic who answers the page wearing goggles and emphatically singing the song playing in the garage, suggest they need it fixed, doing so with the help of crazy hand motions to vaguely describe what supposedly has gone awry.

Other catchy skits include a barrage of complaints toward a co-worker who chooses to actually get work done in her cubicle rather than be sidetracked by Evites, friend requests on Facebook or wedding pictures on Flicker, much to the dismay of significantly less-focused co-workers; parents lecturing their teenage son about being a cyberbully; a spirited song about God letting the Cubs “win it one (bleeping) time;” an improvised set involving the audience and swapping governments with Britain to cure what ails us; a friendly game of playing the race card; a hippy couple invading Ravinia to remind suburbanites what life was like B.C. (before children); some unique techniques in the torture of Guantanamo detainees (staring contest against mannequins, a big bowl of cereal with only a little milk, etc.) and a classic conversation between a bitter old man and his granddaughter.

Entertaining, razor-sharp, fast-paced and comedically reliable, like usual, Second City provides a worthwhile follow-up to the hit “Between Barack and a Hard Place” with this well-rounded effort.

“No Country for Old White Men” is directed by Jim Carlson and is performed on Second City’s mainstage Tuesday-Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday-Saturday at 8 and 11 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets range between $19-25 and can be purchased by calling (312) 337-3992 or logging on to secondcity.com. Free improv sets follow Tuesday-Thursday shows (at 10 p.m.), the late Saturday show (1 a.m.), and Sunday’s show (9 p.m.).

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