Review: ‘Reality Detox' at Second City e.t.c. needs that old Second City chemistry
For its 50th Second City e.t.c Stage revue, “Reality Detox: The Improv Experience,” Second City has transformed itself into an improv theater. Instead of blasting off with a banger of a sketch or three, the first 15 or 20 minutes of the new e.t.c. Stage experience, which opened Thursday night, is composed of a conversation with the audience, snagging material to be later integrated into the show.
The change creates a warm, welcoming, parlor game-type atmosphere and serves as a wild reminder of what some people will reveal in public when asked. But, with all due respect for the institutional willingness to shake things up, it remains my unshakable view that Second City, Chicago and America all need two top-drawer sketch-comedy stages in Old Town - one the pinnacle of the live form, the Carnegie Hall of sketch comedy, and the other a font of the same kind of comedic experimentation that once launched the lives of Keegan-Michael Key and Jack McBrayer, two examples from many others.
There’s plenty of improv to be had elsewhere in town, usually at the hands of far more experienced players than this appealing but youthful e.t.c. cast, a group that (on opening night) tended to both under-vocalize at times and struggle not to overdo it at others. They also often fall back on issues of actor identity rather than consistently probing the existential and metaphysical realm wherein improv truly thrives.
The strongest evidence I have to offer for this view is that these performers - Kennedy Baldwin, Anna Bortnick, Max Thomas, Chas Lilly, Annie Sullivan and Riley Woollen - are actually far stronger when they are doing what Second City traditionally does. Director Anne Libera’s revue has some great sketches; alas, they make up less than a quarter of the proceedings, by my reckoning. Most of the time, the show is caught between the two forms, never committing enough to one or the other to make the night work. Granted, this is an experiment in and of itself, and this is the e.t.c. Stage. Libera, for whom I have the utmost respect as a learned (and generously collaborative) brainiac about this form, took lots of laudable risks.
But now we know. So please start writing stuff down again, folks.
If you don’t know what I am hacking on about here, sketch refers to scripted material developed through improvisation, begun at various antecedents, perfected at Second City and popularized globally by Lorne Michaels and “Saturday Night Live.” Improv, usually separated into short-form and long-form, holds its church services at iO (formerly Improv Olympic) and Annoyance. Short-form (what we get here) is brief scenes made up on the spot and completely different from night to night. Long-form, famously practiced by the masterful TJ Jagodowski and David Pasquesi (coming soon to the Goodman Theatre), features performers who can spin one line of dialogue, or merely a location, into a spontaneous hour. Done well, it’s a blast.
Now, these categories aren’t hard and fast. Improv theaters have sketch shows. And Second City has employed limited improv and used audience suggestions as part of its core aesthetic. The difference is that revues here have invariably cleverly scripted scenes that protect things from going awry, or from merely petering out. This kind of structure happens occasionally in “Reality Detox,” but insufficiently for the show to really live up to the lofty standards of the e.t.c. Stage. And the issue with compiling dozens of suggestions at the top of the show is not just that it eats up crucial stage time but, although many of the work-ins are clever, it makes the show too predictable; the audience quickly figures out where this is going. So instead of many laughs, one louder than the last, you get a kind of diminuendo which is hard to overcome.
The show, which improves after intermission, does have a fabulous closer - greatest-hits worthy - that is composed simply of two guys (musical director John Love and the consistently excellent Lilly) singing in falsetto. Thomas offered up a dead-on impression of Barack Obama on Thursday that I hope stays around in the show. Woollen gets off some crisp one-liners. And Baldwin, Bortnick and Sullivan all have their moments.
Almost always in original, scripted material that lets them shine.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: "Reality Detox: The Improv Experience" (2.5 stars)
When: Open run
Where: The Second City e.t.c. Stage, 1608 N. Wells St. in Piper’s Alley
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Tickets: $39-76 at 312-337-3992 and www.secondcity.com
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This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 3:23 PM.