Second City Mainstage Revue

The Second City Mainstage 114th Revue is the newest entry in a long-running sequence of ensemble-written sketch shows. Titled Pandemonium, Please Hold, it is an evening of original satirical sketches about contemporary life, pitched loud and fast, with the cast working through the noise and overload of the moment rather than retreating from it.

The revue is built from scripted sketches developed by the resident ensemble and interleaved with improvised passages and live music. Material is generated in rehearsal and then tested in front of audiences, so the running order is shaped by what actually lands. Part of each performance is improvised from audience suggestions, which means the scenes, characters and songs made in those stretches exist only for that night.

The mainstage revue is the company's flagship format: a resident ensemble writing and performing its own satirical material, revue by numbered revue, since 1959. Generations of screen comedians and sketch writers have come through it, and the numbering itself — this is the 114th — is a record of how long the company has kept making new work.

The tone is quick and irreverent rather than gentle, closer to social and political satire than to observational comedy. Sketches run short and hand off fast, and the comedy comes from ensemble timing and from performers committing hard to absurd premises. The improvised stretches carry a different charge, since nobody on stage knows where a suggestion will lead.

It suits audiences who like their sketch comedy with an edge, and anyone curious to watch a new revue while it is still finding its shape. Live, the risk in the unscripted sections is the point.