Brightest Young Things

Chicago's iconic improv troupe Second City are in DC performing their revue Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies at Woolly Mammoth Theater now until Jan. 8. The play—as its title suggests—is less of a send-up of narrative trappings and more what you would expect of Second City: a series of sketches that continuously jiggles your body with laughter. Cobbling together song, sketch, improv, and the occasional bit of hit-or-miss drama, Everybody Dies offers a wide scope of comedy that's sure to trigger several laugh-till-it-hurts moments.

But like Saturday Night Live, the show in which many of its alumni feed into, there are also a few misfires. Regardless, the audience tends to remember its homeruns, not the occasional strike-out. The show is engaging from the get-go, and its pace is unrelenting until intermission. At 2 hours and 15 minutes, Everybody Dies appears lengthy, but rest assured that time blazes by in a flurry of laughter.

As much as it is topical (Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, Herman Cain) the revue excels most when it dips into context-less absurdity and surrealism. Horse rides, commercial auditions, and trysts with food items get taken to preposterous levels. Those with a dark sense of humor will relish intermittent moments that teeter on laughter and discomfort.

The troupe takes on some well-worn tropes such as commercial parody and student/teacher mock ups, but each instance succeeds in plumbing the depths of a cliche to provoke a novel reaction. Occasionally, as a twist on their regular routine, there are moments of drama. For the most part the drama's effectiveness succumbs to diminishing returns. Though the first scene is a sobering examination of an issue, successive attempts see their power dwindle until they feel as hokey as one of those "social issue" episodes of Saved By The Bell.

But to reiterate, most failings fade in the face of what does work. The actors command audience attention by jumping in and out of characters with gripping detail and imaginative simulation of their surroundings. A few moments wrought from classic improv techniques of audience engagement will end up being the highlight of each performance; the comics never stop finding ways to hook attentions. Sketches and routines spin at a carousel's pace, accumulating around 30 or so vignettes by the play's end.

For those who have already seen Second City productions, Everybody Dies may not come across as their strongest work, but it still comes stuffed with laughter. For newbies, the revue will prove to be a more than adequate introduction.