Review: SKYLINE'S THE LIMIT At Second City Mainstage

When Second City had its new location at One York Street's grand opening celebration in November, its mainstage cast promised that the new theatre was the only place in town not in danger of being turned into condos, "because it's already condos!" Truly, the comedy complex at the bottom of a soaring condo tower has declared that this SKYLINE'S THE LIMIT, and in its new revue of that name directed by Kirsten Rasmussen, it's as satisfying as a Leafs playoff series win in overtime.

Marinating in irreverence, SKYLINE'S THE LIMIT stars an eager and very funny cast of PHATT al, Andy Assaf, Andy Hull, Nkasi Ogbonnah, Hannah Spear, and understudy Sam Hancock ably filling in for Jillian Welsh the night of review.

Suitable for a room full of strangers at a comedy show, one major theme in SKYLINE is the awkwardness of making human connections in the big city. The cast starts off trapped in an condo building's - maybe this condo building's - elevator; playing themselves playing neighbours, they decide that they might as well finally talk to each other during this potentially-fatal icebreaker.

They also mine the oh-so-relatable anguish of the error you can't come back from: making eye contact with a chatty stranger on the subway. As the deeply lonely woman, Spear smartly makes her over-the-top musician desperate for conversation and not romance with Assaf's utterly done commuter, so that the interaction comes off as funny rather than creepy, aided by Assaf's moment of wonder as he reconsiders the value of what just happened.

Sometimes, we do make actual connections with others, and this is reflected in the one sketch the troupe smartly chose to leave without a biting punchline, a silly and sweet moment with two adorably dorky adolescent girls (Hancock and Ogbonnah) bonding at Space Camp over a love of stars and Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If we can't make connections with people, perhaps we'll try pets, whether it's a bookended pair of scenes with a cat and a dog respectively responding to their owner's medical emergency in very different ways; Ogbonnah's supremely disaffected and callous cat is a highlight.

Perhaps one day we'll even resort to AI for connection, opines the cast, as they become an artificial chorus, taking on robotic, laser-focused movements like ChatGPT meets the Terminator. They want us to know they're just like us, though - even if they secretly (or not-so-secretly) are androids dreaming not of electric sheep but of humanity's annihilation. It's a treat to see the players incorporate traditional improv games into the sketch, answering them AI-style, but with human ingenuity. In fact, it's so funny and elaborate that my one quibble was placement; it felt like a pre-intermission, and the pacing of the next section suffered a little because of that.

The tech references aren't all futuristic, though; more often than not, the show swings straight for the Millennial heart, connecting especially well in a heartfelt exchange between a man and his ancient 2002 computer (Assaf), abandoned in a basement full of junk. Wrapped in a tangle of cords, Assaf's sleepy awakening and following rage at being powered off for a new model is byting (sic) as Hull desperately tries to convince him that their high school journey together through thousands of files of porn actually meant something.

As far human-to-human relationships are concerned, several sketches succeed in exploring the humour in gender dynamics without resorting to any tired gender stereotypes; it's the concept of gender roles itself that's the butt of the joke. For example, one entertaining sketch shows parents struggling more and more when their young son asks them to explain toxic masculinity, then masculinity and femininity in general. Watching the parents answer the first question with some confidence, then get increasingly tied up in knots once they realize that neither of them actually fully fits the descriptions they're making.

If you sit in the front row, audience participation is more than likely, but for the most part it's relatively gentle. Some audience members get fully involved and interviewed onstage; others merely have to donate some props in another surprisingly sweet bit where a brother and sister shop, using us like mannequins. That the entire room gets used in a scene with combat video game overtones is also a super entertaining use of space, though some lines do get a little lost in the scuffle.

Songs add further levity, including Spear's power ballad about not wanting to seem "not nice" at work, despite the increasing social demands of her fellow employees. Al, too, makes the best of his hip hop number as a cranky baby unwilling to go to bed, and at other moments mines huge laughs from lip-syncing a single surprising word.

Finally, what makes this an extra-satisfying revue is the cast's continued ability to work in callbacks to earlier moments, giving even the most scattered sketches what feels like an arc.

When it comes down to it, the question is: will this show make you laugh? I'd hazard an unqualified yes; I certainly did, through the entire show. Yeah, SKYLINE'S THE LIMIT is a riot...a laugh riot, not the one that might happen if the Leafs lose the Cup.

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