Playwright: Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort. At: The Second City at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. Tickets: 312-443-3800; www.goodmantheatre.org; $25-$61. Runs through: Jan. 3
A rite of passage on the road to maturity is to deny the power over your emotions exercised by childhood icons—acts of defiance including, but not restricted to, posing Barbie dolls in provocative postures or flipping off Mickey. For adults seeking liberation from the perceived vulnerability engendered by Charles Dickens' Christmas parable, there are such seasonal humbuggeries as Inspecting Carol, Scrooged, Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge, and this latest in the Second City's collaborations with such highbrow associates as the Lyric opera and Hubbard Street Dance Company.
This is not to say that there's anything inherently lowbrow in this parody ( whose irreverence never approaches the level of vulgarity found in the hip-hop rendition currently running at Navy Pier ). Previous productions in Los Angeles and Portland have afforded Colbert Report-alumni Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort ample opportunity to test their material with live audiences of diverse sensibilities, resulting in a text encompassing excerpts from Yuletide cinema and television fare framed in the Victorian ( i.e. royalty-free ) literary classic.
The show opens with some standard-issue gags—a debate by the three kings on the economic wisdom of giving gold to a poor family, for example, and a commercial for the law firm of Chuzzlewit and Pumblechook. Later, we get a lyric-scrambling chanteuse and an ad-campaign promoting coal as the perfect stocking-stuffer, along with a theological discussion on the set of A Charlie Brown Christmas, a bevy of Misfit Toys adopted by Logan Square hipsters and George Bailey interrupting the action for no apparent reason.
The better parts of the two-hours-with-intermission program are the exhibitions of Second City's trademark improvisational skills: arriving playgoers are handed paper strips upon which they are instructed to record "the worst thing you've ever done"—confessions eventually woven into the chain worn by Jacob Marley and read aloud from the stage. A Christmas-morning scene from the past is replayed three times in different eras with period references changed appropriately. Finally, each performance features a one-time-only cameo by a surprise celebrity guest ( Chef Rick Bayless—no stranger to the stage himself—on the night I attended ).
None of this—not even Frances Guinan's Scrooge kvetching, "I'll bet Larry Yando doesn't have to put up with this!"—would matter if the delivery weren't swift, the timing precise and the focus connected at all times, but the ensemble steps through their paces with nimble alacrity to make this lightweight revue an engaging treat for native Chicagoans and holiday visitors alike.
