OLD TOWN — Can police shootings be funny?
That's a question Chicago's premier comedy club is asking itself — and its audiences — as it seeks to reflect what's happening on streets around the country.
And the reflection right now is of Baltimore burning, police shootings captured on cellphones and a nationwide discussion on race.
The result: audiences laugh when cast members in Second City's highly acclaimed new revue,'"Soul Brother, Where Art Thou?" drop the now universally known names of people like Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.
And laughing is the point.
"It's about finding truth in comedy and pointing out the ridiculousness of other people's actions," said 28-year-old cast member Lisa Beasley. "It's sort of seeing the ridiculousness of it that makes you laugh and that points to the truth of it."
Comedy, cast members said, can offer a platform to make observations without consequence. The review, which opened earlier this month, also provides a platform to be blunt.
While portraying two old African-American men in fur coats on the streets of Chicago, Beasley and Rashawn Nadine Scott drop a racial slur before adding, "Some of you didn't like that."
"It's just a word we can say and you can't," Scott said during the performance. (Most audiences at the North Side theater are white.) "But you get to say things we can't. Like 'I can't breathe, officer.'"
Beasley and Scott also had some advice for surviving as a black man in America: "Food, shelter and not getting shot."
The jokes sting; at times the audience seemed hesitant to laugh — or laugh too loud.
In one scene, an unarmed black child is shot.
Beasley, who grew up in Gary and now lives in Hyde Park, said she became emotional while rehearsing.
"When you see something like that happening to a certain demographic, you think about your father, your brothers, your boyfriends and people you know," she said.
The revue, which was directed by Anthony LeBlanc, was one of the few at Second City to be directed by an African-American man.
An early scene pits two Disneyland workers, one black and one white, in a conversation about race that is intermittently broken up by a passing parade.
"I'm sorry about Ferguson," says Tim Ryder, before a new tram of riders passes by, forcing Ryder and Beasley to cut the conversation, put on a smile and wave.
"So, what's swimming like?" Beasley asks before another tram runs by.
The stage, and in particular comedy, allows the writers to keep the content as fresh as possible. The hope is to provide a glimpse into the latest in current events, which movies or TV shows filmed months or years in advance can't achieve.
"That's one of the great privileges of being at a theater like Second City," said Ryder, a veteran cast member. "It was founded on the idea that it reflects society as it is now."
The death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore hasn't made it onto the second-floor stage yet, but it can't be far off.
"I feel like anybody who is able to use their point of view vocally on stage is in a position of power," Beasley said. "You hope that the audience is laughing for the quote unquote 'right' reason, but that’s something you will never know."
"Soul Brother, Where Art Thou?" isn't purely about race issues. It dives into society's attachment to technology, the struggle (it is based on Homer's "Odyssey") and a literal search for meaning and companionship.
A fatherless boy puts a suitor for his mom through a series of tests before he allowed the man to take her out on a date, including a spin on Dance Dance Revolution. There is a New Orleans-esque funeral procession for a broken iPhone. At one point Second City projects photos and info from two unsuspecting audience member's social media accounts on the wall.
The last bit, which hits on stalking in the modern age, was an eye-opener.
"We don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable enough that they don’t laugh, but at the same time we don't want to just let people get through the entire night without being challenged," Ryder said. "If they don’t want that, they can stay home and watch 'Everybody Loves Raymond.'"
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