The Second City

Nightly, on Chicago's near north side, in a richly dark and curtained room – which partakes of the qualities of coffeehouse, nightclub and show lounge – a wildly enthusiastic audience gathers to watch a talented group of young performers who have brought the arts of the revue and of lightning improvisation to a uniquely high level of hilarious fun mixed with biting social commentary. This is The Second City – so named in wry rebuttal of A. J. Liebling's New Yorker attack on Chicago a few years back. In a short ten months the club has gained a national reputation for presenting the best satire to be seen in the U.S.A. today, taking Liebling's label and blowing it right back at him.

"Ladies and gentlemen," an actor will say from The Second City's tiny stage, "we want you to give us ideas – from current events, your daily lives, the dark recesses of your minds – which we will dramatize for you. Just call out whatever comes to mind."

The audience, munching juicy hamburgers on black bread or sampling a coffeehouse range of decoctions and a bar's range of drinks, is attentive but not especially responsive at first. Then someone calls out:

"Richard Nixon!"

"Western Union!" somebody else shouts.

"Seek and ye shall find!"

"OK," says the actor, "give us just a moment."

The Second City's group of eight actors and actresses huddles briefly, and returns with a scene called The Nightmare of Richard Millions Nixon. In it, the Vice-President is discovered at a somewhat moody breakfast with Pat ("Get down, Checkers! Goddamn dog. I have a busy morning ahead of me, dear. I have to take my statesmanship lesson from Robert Montgomery"). (continued on next page)

Preparing to leave his house and face his public, Nixon gets confused amid the welter of faces he has donned to meet various occasions. He changes in a frenzy from one face ("No! This is my Russian Supermarket face!") to another ("No, dear!" says Pat. "That's your Venezuelan face. It's all crushed on one side!"). At last, fitting his New Liberal face into place, he sallies forth and is dismayed to be mistaken for Governor Rockefeller. Blackout.

Applause – and then the lights come up to reveal a pair of actors, as man and wife, sitting in their living room. This is to be the Western Union scene. A knock on the door is heard.

"Yeah," says the man. "Who is it?"

"Western Union."

"Oh." He moves to the door, opens it and fishes in his pocket for a tip. "Western Union? Here's your tip."

"Thank you," says the messenger to the man. He clears his throat and feelingly delivers his message:

"Happy Birthday to you,Happy Birthday to you,Happy Birthday dear Emma,Happy Birthday to you."

The man turns to his wife. "Emma," he says, "it's for you."

The troupe is not always content with the challenge of rapid improvisation alone, so they may ask the audience to name a "manner" in which, for example, Seek and Ye Shall Find should be done.

"Victorian!" a patron suggests. The lights change to greenish gloom. An actor peers from the wings, then emerges and pantomimes (on the completely bare stage) clawing his way through tropical jungle and swamp, fighting off snakes, crocodiles, wild animals. Finally he breaks through into a clearing, spies another actor in a pith helmet.

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" asks the first man.

"Yes," replies the other.

"Doc," says the first, opening his jacket and pointing, "right here, I got this funny pain in my side. . ." Blackout.

What has undoubtedly gone a long way toward making The Second City a ringing success is the infectious labor-of-love element the actors communicate to their audiences during every show. Long association together on the stage, and a real party-like joy in their work have given The Second City actors an ensemble enthusiasm and ability that is in sharp contrast to stand-up (and sit-still) comics who act not, neither do they sing – since The Second City's comedic effects are wonderfully visual. As for the revues that have made the supposedly hippest cities of both coasts (New York and San Francisco) known for their sophisticated, intimate entertainment, The Second City again offers a positive contrast; for this talented troupe does not merely touch on subjects tabooed by mass media (thereby extracting laughs of recognition for their daring), nor just satirize them with verbal quips, but deploys its dramatic skills to explore them in depth and with corruscating wit. Fresh characterizations, fresh lines, fresh situations night after night make for a spontaneous zeal that whips through on-stage and off-stage enthusiasts alike, and patrons return time after time in the happy knowledge that they're sure to see something different with each visit.

Improvisation is the heart of The Second City – which is both the name of the club and the name of the resident acting troupe. Other skits are written, rehearsed and perfected before performance, but even most of these are based on earlier impromptu scenes suggested by the audience.

The idea of presenting improvisations to a paying audience didn't originate with The Second City, of course; it's as old as theatre itself. The Chicago slant can be traced to David Shepherd, who initiated "instant theatre" at The Compass in the early Fifties. His fun-poking approach to ad-lib satire didn't win enough friends to keep The Compass pointing, but it did nurture the then unknown talents of Shelley Berman, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. The majority of The Second City's cast, also, at one time or another, was active with The Compass.

The three owners of The Second City are perhaps unique in the annals of the nightclub business for being, in one way or another, directly connected with what happens on the stage. Paul Sills directs and doubles as writer. Though he insists that the director's job is simply to "keep the actors from assassinating each other," or "to protect the audience from the performers," the smoothness and mastery of detail shown by the group bespeak the sure hand of a canny director. Bernard Sahlins keeps tab on the business side of the club and manages to script scenes besides. The third owner. Howard Alk. is a member of the resident cast, as are Severn Harden. Andrew Duncan. Barbara Harris, Mina kolb, Paul Sand and Eugene Troobnick. All are professional actors of dedicated integrity who find in this milieu the fullest satisfaction. Darden has perhaps the most varied show-business background, ranging from Shakespearean roles to nightclub mono-logs, but the others have experience wide and wild: Duncan has acted in Germany: Miss Harris had an important role on a Playhouse 90 presentation: Sand worked with Marcel Marceau in Paris and this country, was Judj Garland's dance partner in her cross-country theatre lour, and is currently on view in MGM's The Subterraneans. In addition to an impressive theatrical background, Troobnick was, until very recently, an Assistant Editor of Playboy. Juggling both jobs at once finally became impossible, and he returned to his first love, the footlights. Completing the personnel is Bill Mathieu, the company's onstage pianist and composer, who played trumpet and arranged for the Stan Kenton band before joining The Second City entourage.

"Production" at The Second City depends solely on the group's verbal and pantomimic skills. With no props save an occasional hat. cane or other costume accoutrement, and no furniture except a few unadorned chairs, the cast of The Second City manages to convey to the audience the illusion of a factory production line, the African veldt, a luxurious apartment, the interior of a space ship, or even – when it's called for – the entire universe.

These days, political satire reigns at The Second City, and the group draws a bead on both parlies. Balancing the Nixon scene already described, The Nightware of John Kennedy finds him about to address the Democratic National Convention when he discovers, in terror, that he's nude. "Never mind." brother Bob counsels, "go out there and show them your boyish charm."

A Southern Senator puts on blackface and sings a minstrel song:

"How I love to pick ol' massa'scotton,

Oh. it's fun to work your fingers tothe bone.

How I love to go

To the picture show

And sit down in a special placethat I can cull my own ..."

Then, having smugly concluded his song, he discovers to his horror that the blackface won't come off.

The majority of the company's satires are directed at Man as an irrational animal whose sense of humor is one of the few sturdy threads in the tightrope he is walking. To express this, the company uses a favorite device – the Man-in-tlie-Street interview.

Spoofing Life's dignified discussion of The National Purpose, the interviewer asks man-in-the-street whether he thinks there is too much emphasis, in our country, on consumer goods.

Man: "There certainly is. I think we're getting away from our sense of purpose of the past, even the very recent past."

Interviewer: "The recent past?"

Man: "Yes. Take, for example, the early Thirties."

Interviewer: "Well, but that was the time of the Great Depression, sir."

Man: "Exactly. You didn't find any Beat Generation whining about its own emasculation in those davs, I can tell you. Why. the arts exploded! Look in any post office!"

Interviewer: "Yes, but . . ."

Man: "You didn't find people bumbling aimlessly around wondering what it was they wanted out of life either, I can tell you. Everybody in those days knew exactly what it was he wanted!"

Interviewer: "And what was that, sir?"

Man: "Why, more consumer goods, of course."

On the international level, to point a spotlight at the semantic sillinesses on which our fates seem perpetually to hang, the troupe presents Businessman, a skit which, along with others of the group's best, was written by Roger Bowen, a Compass alumnus now living in England. In it, Businessman (Organization Man with Superman's powers) battles for possession of the moon with his Soviet bloc counterpart, Collective-man. Their method is to pelt each other with catch phrases from their ideologies:

Collectiveman: "Take this! The irresistible historical momentum of the workers' movement! Shmek!"

Businessman: "Yes, but you take this! The eight-hour day! Pow! And collective bargaining! Zowie!"

Collectiveman: "A temporary setback only. Here is the destruction of the world market by the state trading principle of selling far below cost! Potch!"

Businessman: "Hardly felt that. But here is the devaluation of world farming by the dumping of American agricultural surpluses!" (hitting below belt) "Squish!"

Collectiveman: "Didn't expect that!"

When they run out of catch phrases, they clash with their respective scientific achievements. Collectiveman, reduced to "jet-propelled tractors" as his final weapon, is ultimately vanquished when Businessman slugs him with "The Thinking Man's Filter!"

Like any group gathered to watch satire, the audience at The Second City – which ranges from rebellion-driven Beats to chauffeur-driven elites – enjoys most those scenes that pinpoint their own foibles and fancies. A Great Books Discussion Group, starting out to dissect Oedipus Rex, winds up gossiping about an older woman living with a man young enough to be her son. Trying to seduce her boyfriend, a girl discovers he's allergic to the dinner she's prepared, to her cat, even to her perfume. Determined, she removes these barriers, only to find, when they finally clinch, that she's allergic to his beard.

The future of The Second City seems to be as bright as its material. At this writing, it is a pleasant irony to note that one of Broadway's biggest producers is negotiating with The Second City, with the object of opening a second Second City in the first city of New York.