The cast of Woolly’s “Barack Stars”.

Written by DCist contributor Monica Shores

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.