Review: Second City's 102nd Revue 'Depraved New World'

By Matt Byrne in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 31, 2014 8:45PM

Second City's 102nd Mainstage revue, Depraved New World, is one of the most enjoyable, well-crafted sketch shows you're likely to see this year. Many of the beats typical to these sort of polished, suburbanite-friendly shows (laborious political parodies, pander-y local references, half-baked "messages," etc.) are nowhere to be found, replaced by a rapidly free-associating stream of accessibly absurdist sketches that rarely break the three minute mark, only occasionally interrupted by longer set pieces. The show addresses topics both slice-of-life (a blind date gone awry, the perils of dating douchey guys) and bizarre (small town firefighters celebrating their charitable ways with group sex, a horrific accident at horse camp), discretely pushing audience members outside of their comfort zones without coming off as confrontational or unfriendly.

Depraved New World's cast is also the strongest I've seen on the Mainstage, including obvious standout John Hartman, who brings a wonky physicality and wealth of weird ideas to the table and Tawny Newsome, a multifaceted performer whose dexterous comedic feats earned her two separate, well-deserved applause breaks within ten minutes of each other on opening night. Mainstage veteran Steve Waltien is as great as ever, with a spindly energy that recalls Stella's Michael Showalter; rounding out the cast are three confident newcomers, the fearless Emily Walker, the charismatic Mike Kosinski and the magnetic Chelsea Devantez.

Annoyance Theatre founder and Chicago comedy icon Mick Napier's direction keeps the show moving at a relentless clip, maintaining a tone of silly darkness amplified by the cast's go-for-broke characterizations. Musical director Jesse Case either has four arms or the ability to slow down time, effortlessly flying through an unending series of musical cues and stings. Gone is the production-heavy, projector worship of last year's revue Let Them Eat Chaos, replaced by occasional impressive lighting tricks that never distract from the performances.

I was most excited when things went fully off-the-rails cuckoo bananas. A few scenes in the show's second act stomp past last-five-minutes-of-Saturday-Night-Live weird into territory normally reserved for the city's most experimental venues, including an absolutely delightful scene starring Newsome as a seamstress to the stars with a sassy pet parrot (ably played by Walker) with a fascinatingly off-kilter tone that just kept going, pushing past absurdity into straight up dadaism. You'll feel like you're missing a reference to something, but you're not, it just is.

Perhaps my favorite thing about Depraved New World is its total lack of agenda; when it does reference current events and topical sticking points, they're premises, not punchlines. A locker room full of football players about to meet their new, openly gay teammate are first introduced to one of those horrific goats that scream like people; the hypocritical Republican senator with a taste for male prostitutes isn't so much as skewered as pushed aside in favor of a doo-wop song documenting the trials and tribulations of DC rentboys. Depraved New World isn't out to foment revolution or find some deep inner truth, it'd rather spend an hour or two doing weird goofs with its friends, and when the jokes hit this hard and as fast, that's more than enough for me.

Depraved New World is playing now on Tuesdays thru Sundays at Second City's Mainstage Theater, 1616 N. Wells St. Tickets on sale now.