Jays bandwagoners Kirsten Rasmussen and Kevin Whalen have a run-in with diehard Kyle Dooley.
Because The Hotline Always Blings Twice (the title of the new Second City sketch-comedy revue) refers to a song by the pop-music maestro Drake, there was a hint that the man would be subject to a long-overdue lampooning. He's obviously a talented cat, but the Toronto-bred hip-hop hero has somehow managed sacred-cow status, his unassailability a mystery. After all, he's a brand-building civic booster ad nauseam, a locker-room interloper, a 416 shout-outer who is promiscuous among other metropolitan areas, and a semi-singer shamelessly misogynistic if the lyrics to his Hotline Bling hit are any indication. (Drake is upset that after he left the city, the paramour he left behind had the audacity to live a life without him – "used to always stay at home, be a good girl.")
So, Drake, ripe for the ripping, yes?
Apparently not. In fact, not only didn't a sizzling Second City troupe come to bury Drake on opening night earlier this week, it came to praise him. In a sketch based upon the two worst words most any sane person would want to hear – "President Trump" – it was proposed that the walls built on Canadian borders to prevent Americans from flooding in be constructed specifically during a Raptors game, as to keep the team "ambassador" Drake in country (and the self-styled bad boy Justin Bieber out).
Instead of setting sights on the Rihanna-fawning rapper, in an off-the-hook display of satire and zingers the show's six scriptwriting cast members aimed lower, directing their jabs at the country's rock-star Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau – "untouched by age and experience." Versatile joker Kyle Dooley donned a wig and conflated one J.T. with another, the actor-singer Justin Timberlake. Trudeau's hippy-dippy platitudes were noted; his lightweight intellect, skewered like lamb meat. "There's no message," one bedazzled female fan explained breathlessly, "but it's so positive."
Mr. Dooley was in the middle of another hot sketch, about the bandwagon-jumping, baseball-ignorant fans who flocked to the cause of the suddenly successful Toronto Blue Jays a year ago. His ballcap-wearing character was a diehard who knew the "pain of perpetual mediocrity," and, because of which, resented the influx of newbies, including the father and daughter sitting next to him. In a flip as excellent as a Bautista bat toss, the diehard is exposed as a sad loner – his life a series of frustrations which left him with nothing but an existence devoted to ballpark franks and blue jerseys.
Best sketch of the night? Some would say the prim absurdity of the exchange between Becky Johnson and Kevin Whalen, a long-time couple who surprise each other with outrageous admissions. What she does with pennies, I mean really.
Other votes should go to the sexually charged film-noir take on the city's current Uber-taxi confrontation. Leigh Cameron is the snap-talking dame being fought over by two rival drivers. The taxi man is made to be the mug – his battery is dead and nobody has jumper cables, and why doesn't he "make like the telegram and get gradually phased out of society?"
Ms. Cameron, to my mind, has often been the cast's weakest link in the company's recent revues. But, with her bright presence in The Hotline Always Blings Twice, Second's City's unwavering faith in her was redeemed. In a short, riotous scene involving a public-school recital, she was the little girl sobbing and stage-struck initially, but the one who rallies and ultimately wins the most applause. Deservedly so, it should be said.
<QL>The Hotline Always Blings Twice runs to July 3. $25 to $52. Second City, 51 Mercer St., 416-343-0011 or secondcity.com.
Brad Wheeler