Woolly Mammoth Theatre: "She The People: The Resistance Continues"

After a Winter Break with some wonderful theatre productions, the perfect aperitif?  An afternoon of satirical, feminist comedy and improv from the crew at Chicago's The Second City improvisational comedy troop.  It's an enterprise with a list of alumni that reads like a who's who of Comedy royalty: From Gilda Radner to Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, on to Mike Myers, Tina Fey, Steve Carrel, Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert...and WAY TOO MANY others to even name.  With such a host of talent past, you expect to be watching the next generation of super-stars, and this afternoon I was not disappointed.

Of the six women on stage, five were from the company, and one was a local understudying for an absent member to the group from Chicago.  The understudy was fine, but obviously not as in tune with the others.  Either by design or happenstance, the local actor's role was not as large as the others.

The show opens with a musical number where the cast takes turns completing the line "I wish..." with a feminist theme, hilarious and insightful at times.  The show is a serious of rapid-fire skits with a few longer sketches sprinkled in.  Nothing is left of the list of lampoon-able subjects from date rape to anti-vaxxers.  The content was often triumphantly bawdy, but never gratuitous.  The first act ended with the "Game Show" Ovary Reacting about women's excessive emotional responses.  A member of the audience was selected to be one of the contestants and it was great fun for every.

The second act brought more of the same and more audience participation.  It ended with Jo Scott portraying a psychic radio conspiracy theorist from the Jersey Shore (should I give you a minute to contemplate that?) who would name a controversial moment from history and then ask the audience to name an actor.  From here, in character, she would run a tour de force game of "6 degrees of separation" (6, 16, 32...who's counting?) that would tie in individual back to the heart of the crime.  Did you know that Hugh Jackman was responsible for the Kennedy assassination?  Neither did I until this afternoon! She ran the shtick 3 times, each time upping the ante of difficulty, and each time topping the last.

On the walk over to the show, I passed a homeless gentleman at the Navy Memorial.  I've seen him there before.  One the way back I noticed he gone (hopefully to some shelter for the night).  As I looked away from his "spot" and toward the entrance of the Metro station, through the fading light of dusk I saw him walking toward me.

As we neared, he said, "Nice hat, man."

I broke into a spontaneous smile and replied, "Thanks!"

He return a broad smile and; honestly, a giggle...