Review: SPOTLIGHT AT THE SECOND CITY at Second City

Debuting this September, Spotlight at the Second City is a new series produced and hosted by Taylor Hreljac and Gabe Meacher. Hreljac and Meacher give up-and-coming sketch troupes a berth on the ’73 Stage for two nights, a sort of tasting platter for comedy audiences.

For its October Spotlight series, the featured acts were $20 Sandwich and Sarah Bennett.

$20 Sandwich (Brennan Asbridge, Tony Hall, Shaun Hunter and Chase Jeffels) presented a set long on unique ideas and fun juxtapositions, whether it’s a set of incongruous auditions or a running gag about a luminous feminine hygiene product. Their opening sketch effectively married two warring anxiety scenarios: the need to disarm a bomb vs. the need to keep a Duolingo streak alive, both with a deadline of midnight.

The troupe excels at creating scenarios where things spiral out of control and characters betray themselves; one vignette showing the dangers of getting caught leaving transit early to avoid a conversation with a coworker becomes gloriously strange as the man reels out his list of sins. Another shows a shopper going back on his best-laid plans of a healthy shopping list to decadently revel in purchasing artificial junk food instead.

And a sketch that replaces Gollum’s beloved “Precious” ring with a cell phone was an absolute, profanity-laden stitch, even cascading out into the audience. This is definitely a crew to watch and see what they’ll come up with next.

Post-intermission, Bennett, a veteran of JFL 42 and the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, presented a solo showcase.

I last saw Bennett in the highly entertaining Sarah and Racquel Rule the World at the Toronto Fringe, and was excited to see what was next. Solo sketch comedy can be difficult, but Bennett manages to bring to life several strong characters in her monologue pieces, loosely grouped together via the concept of a Thanksgiving dinner ruined (enhanced?) by wacky toasts from clueless family members. A cheerfully misspelled and deliberately haphazard autumn-themed Powerpoint introduces the sketches, “Graphic Design Is My Passion”-meme style.

In particular, we see the progression of Kyle, an awkward young man who’s on the verge of being redpilled but loves his mom, delivering speeches that are sometimes raunchy, sometimes sweet, and always horrifyingly awkward, particularly a misguided ode to our troops.

The highlight of Bennett’s enjoyable set was another toast given by Kyle’s aforementioned mother, who has been sucked in to AI-driven social media hoaxes; credulity seems to be a family trait, as Bennett paints an effective picture of how a person goes down the Facebook rabbit hole to the point where all reality seems questionable.

Since the half hour is almost all contained to the Thanksgiving table, a little judicious dramaturgy around the theme of successive holidays with the same family would make it even tighter. An opening sketch where Bennett’s character reveals more and more ludicrous loyalty cards on a date is very amusing, but sticks out from the rest of the loose narrative. But there’s lots of promise here.

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