Playwright: The Cast ( Brian Gallivan, Joe Canale, Ithamar Enriquez, Amber Ruffin, Brad Morris and Molly Erdman )
At: Second City Mainstage, 1616 N. Wells
Phone: 773/337-3992; $19-$24
Open run
By Catey Sullivan
It was only a matter of time: Not even Barack Obama can walk on water indefinitely. And so with the Second City's Between Barack and a Hard Place, the Great Tan Hope of Our Great Nation comes in for the sort of skewering that hitherto has been reserved for, oh, Hillary Clinton. After all, if you're going to be Everyman—white, Black, brown, red, blue, Jew, evangelical, soccer mom, gay dad and all points in between—you're also going to be an equal-opportunity, multifaceted target.
In Barack, the Second citizens take aim at the multiculti goldenchild that is the junior Senator from Illinois and—as is their wont—get away with saying things that you're not supposed to say out loud in these politically correct times. Let the erudite pundits write their carefully worded think pieces on the delicate politics of Obama's mixed-race heritage. At Second City, they get right to the knife-edged, satirical point: 'Let's face it, America,' says the Obama of the opening skit, 'I am a white man.'
Directed with laser precision by Matt Hovde, written by the cast ( Joe Canale, Ithamar Enriquez, Molly Erdman, Brian Gallivan, Brad Morris and Amber Ruffin ) and featuring the predictably pitch-perfect musical direction by Ruby Streak, Barack the comedic revue doesn't stop at Barack the Moses of the Democratic Party. The usual suspects ( terrorists, politicos and smokers ) and some unusual ones ( gay potato-chip delivery men, Abe Lincoln and Manet paintings ) combine to create a comic revue that is bitingly hilarious. Rest easy, America: The war on drugs, we learn from one fist-pumping patriot, has been as successful as the war on terror.
Meanwhile, rarely has a duo seemed as inspired as during the opening night improv riffs of two blind bluesmen ( Canale and Enriquez ) thrown for a bilingual loop by a Spanish-speaking member of the audience. Then there's the performance art stylings of Brian Gallivan as he graces the stage with an interpretive dance about party subs. To see Gallivan work it in an imaginary sandwich assembly line is to realize that you will never again look at Subway employees the same way. Gallivan's jaw-droppingly—yes, jaw-droppingly—funny: a rubber-limbed, doe-eyed force of nature. ( You might recognize him as the much-caressed face of a rather ubiquitous shaving cream commercial that was in heavy TV rotation this past winter. )
A scant few of the sketches in Barack don't work—A one-joke bit about Slovenia is flat-out stupid and a skit about television anchors providing terrorists with all kinds of valuable security secrets is predictable. But overall excellence eclipses these brief lulls of mediocrity. One can only imagine what the troupe here will offer up once the election season really gets going.