The Psychopath Not Taken
By Albert Williams
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Yet for all its success Second City remains surprisingly, even amazingly noncorporate, its longevity explainable by a down-to-earth connection with audiences. Though its reputation hinges on the many celebrities whose careers it’s launched–audiences love to moon over the lobby photos showing famous alumni (Look how young Alan Arkin was! Look at John Candy’s long hair!)–Second City is about the present, not the past. Sweet in his book rightly speaks of “the communal sharing of experience between a group of peers” as “actors perform stories expressing the concerns of the community,” and that principle guides Second City’s two current shows, The Psychopath Not Taken on the 320-seat main stage and The Revelation Will Not Be Televised in the 180-seat Second City E.T.C. space. Smart, sharp, slick, yet still loose enough to feel spontaneous, these sketch-comedy revues showcase a talented new generation of actor-writers and a pair of skillful directors, Mick Napier and Jeff Richmond, who know that their most important asset is their cast. The two are slated to join forces on the two-part production Second City envisions to celebrate its 40th anniversary next December; meanwhile the current shows, which they’ve individually overseen, offer a portrait of where Second City and its audiences are today.
Two generations ago Second City offered a wry, hip alternative to sanitized, segregated mainstream America. Today no such dichotomy exists: society isn’t divided between “culture” and “counter,” it’s just a fragmented, image- and information-saturated collage of competing impulses. The Psychopath Not Taken and The Revelation Will Not Be Televised reflect this condition. The characters who move through these shows’ barbed, mordant, often troubling sketches are average folks just trying to negotiate the treacherous terrain of contemporary life and its radically shifting gender, race, and class dynamics.
Richmond’s technically ambitious, fast-paced production makes innovative use of synthesized music and sound effects, crisply executed by keyboardist Michael Thomas and technical operator Klaus Schuller. The show also takes Second City back to basics with some impressively risky onstage improv, as members of the audience are drawn onstage not merely to give suggestions but to participate in an improvised scene after some quick instruction in the rules of the form.
