Nov. 11--Created by a group of friends from Highland Park High School, the party game Cards Against Humanity incorporates the non-sequitur silliness of Mad Libs with a blazingly simple premise wherein even drunk people -- who are we kidding, especially drunk people -- can excel.
A best-seller on Amazon, the game works like this: A designated Card Czar has a stack of cards printed with an innocuous fill-in-the-blank sentence or a question. The players, armed with cards of their own, printed with a random word or phrase, must offer up their best answer. This is a self-described "party game for horrible people," so the more ridiculous or disgusting the end result, the better.
Under the Gun Theater -- the new comedy enclave installed in the old Links Halls space in Wrigleyville -- has taken the game a step further with "Comedy Against Humanity." The Card Czar is on stage and plays each round with the audience; the winning answer becomes fodder for a short series of improvised scenes.
The card "Dear Abby, I'm having some trouble with _____ and I need your advice" was met with an answer card that contained a phrase about running out of a certain bodily fluid, so needless to say the improv here can get pretty gross, but that's sort of the point. It's good-natured raunch, squeamish in its awful they-went-there! mentality, which I think accounts for the game's (and the show's) appeal.
What the show needs now is a bit more structure from whomever plays the Card Czar. (Under the Gun rotates members of its house team in and out of the show, so there are different folks performing each week.)
Specifically, it needs someone permanent to run this thing, someone with a brutal sense of timing who can anticipate dead spots before they even begin. The ensemble itself was likable but uneven -- that's not something you see very often and it needs to be remedied quickly. Players like Sam Howard (a wonderfully delirious physical comedian) and Greg Callozzo (quick, specific and reliably funny) were playing at a different level than some of their fellow castmates, a couple of whom had little to contribute or would literally draw a blank.
The show really fell apart by the end (you never want to close on a meandering series of scenes) which can be easily been avoided with a stronger Card Czar running things.
2.5 STARS
Open run at Under the Gun Theater, 956 W Newport Ave.; tickets $12 at 773-270-3440 or undertheguntheater.com
