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The cast of Woolly's "Barack Stars".
Woolly Mammoth shouldn’t have trouble selling tickets to its current show, Barack Stars; the reputation of Chicago’s Second City comedy group will do most of the work. The legendary improv school fostered the careers of entertainers like Stephen Colbert and Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer Simpson), and regularly supplies members for the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” from Tina Fey to Bill Murray. Given their impressive past, the question is not whether their new show, exclusive to Woolly, is funny, but rather, “how funny is it?”
The answer is “very,” if you’re of a certain political leaning. While the show pokes fun at the idea of Obama as an infallible savior, it’s also a sentiment it generally endorses. There are a few shots taken at Biden for his propensity to say offensive things, but it doesn’t match the indictments in an Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh duet with the refrain, “We’re still as awful as can be.” The running joke about Rahm Emanuel is that the man’s a badass who gets stuff done—not exactly condemnation.
There’s no mean-spiritedness here—after all, Ann Coulter really did say that 9/11 widows were happy when their husbands died—but the show takes a decidedly liberal approach when selecting targets: white men who complain about reverse racism, recently laid-off but still well-off Americans, and whites who tout their open-mindedness while still emphasizing race. The treatment of political figures, Sarah Palin included, are relatively toothless and predictable. While the performers get plenty of laughs through their use of melody and just plain enthusiasm, many of these gags aren’t new. The NSA is listening to your phone conversations, Obama is going to bring rainbows and puppies—they’re all old punch lines by now. Perhaps we’ve just seen these figures satirized and heard the same complaints so many times that, although valid, they’ve lost their charge.
It all also feels uncomfortably self-congratulatory. There was something safe, even reassuring, about the delivery of the skit in which a white businessman complains about being demoted to a war refugee taxi driver from the Gaza strip. It’s not intended to truly challenge or provoke the audience, only to provide them with an opportunity to feel better about themselves. Those watching are encouraged to see themselves as unlike the callous taxi rider, who laments the loss of a friend’s summer home and his ability to buy expensive beer, even if they, too, have mourned the need to scale back on frivolities. Call it the Borat/Bruno dilemma. Laughing becomes a way to indicate “I’m not like that!” as much, if not more so, than genuine amusement.
Whenever the cast abandoned their focus on politics for non sequiturs or just plain silliness, the audience response was raucous. A old improv game of two detectives free-associating their way to conclusions contained the single funniest line in the whole show, courtesy of the brilliant Brooke Bagnall, while the post-show Mad Libs political debate, in which the audience suggested the necessary words, was hilarious enough to excuse the missteps that had come before.
Barack Stars runs through Aug. 2 at Woolly Mammoth. Tickets are available online.
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I miss Mark Russell's shows at Fords Theater. Now THAT was biting political comedy in the spirit of Lenny Bruce.
the rahm bits throughout were pretty good...
I hear that Brooke Bagnall is real pretty too. Whatta combo!
I hear that Brooke Bagnall is real pretty too. Whatta combo !