Jan. 10--When the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival (aka "SketchFest") first started in 2002, it stretched out over seven weeks. Now claiming bragging rights as the world's largest festival of its kind, SketchFest packs about 165 groups and over 180 shows into two weekends. That of course means most of the acts are one-night stands, so if you want to get in on your favorite local group -- or if you want to catch higher-profile acts, like "Siblings of Doctors," starring Danny Pudi from "Community" (playing at 7 and 8 p.m. Friday) -- you need to hop to it.
I caught a block of four shows Saturday night, which provided a small taste of the Eataly of comedy contained within the walls of Stage 773. Though the acts I saw ended up being rather heavy on white guys, the festival overall offers plenty of variety in terms of cast diversity and aesthetics, including pieces focused on music, dance, puppetry and solo artists.
The Cupid Players: The house company at Stage 773 and purveyors of the long-running musical sketch comedy hit "Cupid Has a Heart On," directed by SketchFest founder Brian Posen, unveils brand-new material about sex and romantic relationships. Reeny Hofrichter channeled a bit of Bette Midler's raunchy chanteuse persona (and accompanied herself on ukulele) on an ode to self-loathing sex with an ex, while the four men in the company performed a physically challenging homage to -- let's just call it a near-impossible form of self-fulfillment. Heteronormativity dominates the proceedings, though some of the best work colors outside the lines of romance, as in Andi Woody's turn as a mousy office worker who turns elevator rides with strangers into whacked-out opportunities for harassment. The show plays again at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Super Punk: The acclaimed Los Angeles-based duo of Mike Betette and Phillip Mottaz reunited in a show heavy on cerebral absurdity and through-the-looking-glass inverted logic. A patient with a jones for eating anthrax (Mottaz) argues with his doctor over what level of biohazard meets FDA standards. Two straight-men from different vaudeville acts join forces in delivering painfully literal takes on knock-knock jokes. Some of the bits -- as when Betette loses his wallet and insists on going back to the anthrax scene to find it -- felt needlessly recursive. But in one of the funniest pieces, Sir Mix-a-Lot (Betette) and the director of his video for "Baby Got Back" deliver a commentary soundtrack that manages to send up our current mania for inside-baseball minutia about pop culture with wry subtlety -- particularly considering the source material.
Last Call Cleveland: Festivals have their share of technical glitches, but "Last Call Cleveland" turned those hiccups into hilarity when their interstitial video and graphics displayed onscreen in a tiny format that seemed to reflect the decline of their namesake city. Taking aim at the "seamless" and slick Hollywood sketch community, Zacariah Durr proclaimed "We're just seams!" That slapdash underdog mindset runs throughout their show, presented as an attempt to get Chicagoans to move to the Fifth Coast (or whatever the shores of Lake Erie constitute). The group has been on hiatus from SketchFest for a few years, but it nailed the unique Midwestern mix of nerd and bro, as in Aaron McBride's most-annoying-dweeb-in-the-bar who returns later as the worst funeral guest ever. The frustration of being overlooked as a civic entity plays at the granular level in Mike Polk's angry anti-valentine to an ex-lover. "I hope that you get seasick, even when you're not at sea." Despite the self-deprecation, the group proved that Cleveland still rocks.
The Defiant Thomas Brothers: The duo of Seth Thomas and Paul Thomas dominated local sketch stages in the early 2000s, but until recently they've been on radio silence. Their SketchFest show (also running at 8 p.m. Saturday) offers some greatest hits, including the recasting of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" as a dizzying dialogue about drug dealers and their street names. A dig at the ComedySportz competitive improv format takes an uncomfortable turn as the two attempt to win it all at "ComedySmartz" while working with the audience suggestion of "abortion." (Their rivals, the Rebellious Johnson Sisters, apparently got off easy with something scatological.) Racial tension -- Seth Thomas is black and Paul is white, if you didn't already know -- comes through most clearly in a sketch where two neighbors compare lawn- and pool-care companies whose acronyms match scurrilous racial and ethnic epithets. While one wonders why these two never got a big shot at the "seamless" Hollywood comedy machine, it's nice to have them back where they belong.
Kerry Reid is a freelance critic.
ctc-arts@tribpub.com
When: Through Jan. 17
Where: Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave.
Running time: Shows each run about one hour
Tickets: $15 per show, $37-$57 day passes available at 773-327-5252 or stage773.com
