Second City goes back to the future

15 Dec 2021.

Second City is back, after two years of stormy waters struggling with the quarantine and a major restructuring. Having lost their previous location on Mercer Street to another hideous condo, the company is temporarily running shows out of the new west end Comedy Bar, near Main subway station. Last week they launched their latest revue, Welcome Back to the Future.

I spoke with cast member Tricia Black, who one might also recognize from TV shows such as Pretty Hard Cases, Band Ladies, and Baroness von Sketch. “It’s hectic,” she told me over Zoom. “We’re in a brand new space and haven’t performed live in over a year and a half. The show is a bit of a mix. There’s some archival stuff, some improv. We wrote the black-outs, the opener and closer, some other stuff.” Tricia also does two songs. “I grew up loving musical theatre, and music has always been a huge part of my life.”

One sketch really stood out, and even though it does not feature Tricia, I asked her about it. A White man and a Black woman in a relationship decide on some role-play for their date night. When he asks what fantasy scenario she wishes to try, she says that she wants to pretend she is White. Once empowered with all that privilege, she has a great time, but it confuses the man, who finally admits, “I don’t get it.” 

“And you never will,” she replies with drop-the-mike brutality. At that moment the stage is plunged into darkness. The audience wasn’t sure how to respond. Clapping seemed ill-advised at this juncture. Luckily, the next sketch started up right away, rescuing us from the discomfort. I asked Tricia about it. 

“It was written by Nkasi [Ogbonnah], who is the first Black woman in a MainStage show in over a decade,” she explained. “Sometimes with comedy, it's nice to hit them hard, and I think it's okay for an audience to not know whether to laugh or not. Now they understand things from her perspective. I’m the only queer person onstage, and I have to believe that this is important to at least one person in the audience.”