Playwrights: The ensemble. At: GayCo Productions at The Playground Theater, 3209 N. Halsted St.. Tickets: 773-871-3793 or www.gayco.com/bearlylegal; $13-$18. Runs through Dec. 20
Chicago's longest-running LGBTQ sketch comedy troupe GayCo Productions turns 18 years old with a new revue called Bearly Legal.
Yet it's odd that GayCo didn't mine that milestone age for a series of comedy sketches involving newly official adults buying their first legal lotto tickets, cigarettes or sex toys. And with a pun title like Bearly Legal, there's surprisingly not any jokes about jailbait-no-more cubs trying to enter into the gay Bear subculture.
Instead, Bearly Legal under Aaron Sjoholm's direction plays much like any other GayCo revue in a non-milestone year. It's not a bad thing, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
Eagle-eyed gender-equality sticklers might also grumble about the casting of Bearly Legal, even though there is an equal number of men and women on stage.
One of the three women in the show is the very supportive music director Sandy Van Laningham, leaving just Kathy Betts and Erin Island to be two funny ladies opposite the three funny guys of Robin Trevino, Adam Bindert and Christopher "Tito" Thies Lotito. But humor doesn't have to rely on quotas, and there's plenty of laughs in GayCo's Barely Legal.
Bindert and Trevino open the show with a very witty commentary on the name change up of many North Halsted Street gay bars, with an Abbott and Costello-type riff on the newly revived Manhole.
Bindert is also involved in a hilariously awkward sketch as a gay father fielding female freshness questions from Island as his very inquisitive daughter. Bindert also shines as a gay guy apologist to a woman he briefly dated in high school when he claimed he was still bisexual.
A bearded Lotito is amusing in a rant about the increased sexualized trend of male facial hair, which clearly spoofs the contradictory way that some women who wear suggestive clothing complain about being objectified.
There are also many fun ensemble musical numbers. There's a very astute sketch about gay men's obsessions with social media documentation, plus a nostalgic number as Trevino reminisces about his drunken misspent youth as a Halsted Street bar hopper. Island is particularly loopy as a guitar-strumming baby music class leader with songs that tackle very adult subjects.
Yet there's also room for improvement. A pantomime involving an accident-prone lesbian couple could have been developed more clearly, while a running gag song complaining about a tiresome newly out woman going through "lesbian puberty" just peters out each time it reappears.
As is the case with many people's 18th birthdays, Bearly Legal might not live up to all expectations of that milestone age. Yet it's quite an accomplishment for GayCo to have endured so long, and to have remained so funny.
