Friday, July 18, 2003 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOW REVIEW: Homegrown skits raise bar for Second City

Comedy troupe moves away from established archive material to shape a show specifically for Las Vegas

Jason Sudeikis, from left, Kay Cannon, Joe Kelly, Holly Walker and Seamus McCarthy star in The Second City.

"Don't be too impressed," Jason Sudeikis says from The Second City's stage, in the guise of has-been comedian Shecky Browne.

"Don't let me peak too early," he adds, after successfully spinning an audience member's shouted suggestion into an improvised joke.

Peaking too early is perhaps the only danger of The Second's City's new revue, which packs nearly two dozen scripted sketches and improvised skits into slightly more than 70 minutes of hyperspeed comedy.

And considering the five performers wrote all the scenes or made them up on the spot, it's hard not to be impressed.

For two years, the Las Vegas spin-off of the Chicago comedy institution has been a best-kept entertainment secret for locals; a smart, theatrical alternative to magic and mindless spectacle.

None of that has changed, but the new edition that debuted June 17 takes it one step further. The revue that opened with nine rotating cast members doing "greatest hits" is now almost entirely homegrown, written by five performers who have lived here long enough to know the town.

During a two-month turnaround, the five gradually replaced sketches from the vaults of the 44-year-old theater company. That stuff was fun, but nothing like sharing the rush of the Las Vegas crew savoring its own material.

The obvious difference? Catching up to current affairs to lampoon President Bush and Dr. Phil ("How's that workin' for ya?" the TV sage asks a guy who is about to jump off a roof.) For the more subtle changes, you would have to have seen the earlier show.

Kay Cannon, for instance, is a physical comic exploding with body language, and thus a tough fit for some of the more understated sketches in the archives. But now she shines in a custom showcase. It would be just as hard for someone else to pull off a brief sight gag involving bagpipes (to explain more would ruin it) or a deliriously silly scene in which she and Holly Walker are crazed nursing-home residents who must be shot down with tranquilizer darts.

Sudeikis -- who, with Seamus McCarthy, opened the Las Vegas show -- has emerged as a candidate to be "called up" to "Saturday Night Live" in the long tradition of Second City alumni from John Belushi to Rachel Dratch.

He supplies the Bush and Dr. Phil imitations, but also proves fast on his feet in the improvised skits. "We're nature's caulk," he ad libs as a dim-bulb gravedigger. Another audience suggestion cast Sudeikis as a cabdriver in a skit with Cannon, as a new-to-town stripper. It unfolded with such natural humor you almost hated to see it interrupted by the mechanics of the other suggestions.

But all five stars give themselves plenty of choice material. Walker and Joe Kelly put a big-city edge on a sketch in which black and white police detectives interpret a murder scene through their own prejudices. McCarthy memorably transforms into Thurston McDrinkalot, the well-lubricated, much-too-happy host of Gunrunners, Second City's riff on the Bootlegger Bistro.

The topical skits -- an Afghan romance parodying "Dirty Dancing," or Sudeikis as a senator who must constantly apologize -- play like a really good episode of "Saturday Night Live." Before long, you realize why.

Once the TV show commits its resources to a skit's elaborate costumes and sets, it has no choice but to maximize the running time.

The stage troupe, on the other hand, uses only a few wigs and props, and can pare a bit down to 30 seconds if that's all it deserves. A series of blackouts near the end fires staccato riffs on the Strip, from the Blue Man Group to "Thunder From Down Under."

The show rolls at such a breakneck pace it can tire you out. You wish for a few more grace notes that allow the actors to stretch out, such as a sketch with Sudeikis as a 16-year-old busted for drunk driving by his furious father (Kelly).

But the Las Vegas experience in itself is fast and furious, and Second City is only responding accordingly. Buckle up and enjoy.