On the scene: Rush Limbaugh! The Musical at Second City. e.t.c.

I walked into the Second City's newest musical parody a typical left-of-center kind of guy. But judging by how much I thoroughly relished its total obliteration of Limbaugh and his right-wing cronies, I walked out of the theater beaming the bluest shade of blue. Rush Limbaugh! The Musical is at times offensive, cheap and one-sided—not unlike Limbaugh himself. In other words, it does what doey-eyed liberals (and moderate conservatives) have feared to do for decades, fills its arsenal with slanderous vitriol and aims it straight back at the conservative machine. Except that it's far smarter and funnier than anything the right could ever throw our way (thank God entertainers are on our side!).

The story begins in the early sixties with a young Rush pedaling his mediocre talents as a DJ at a church sock hop. Even his musical choices reflect his blooming conservatism. "Screw those commie, faggy Beatles and give me some Pat Boone!" It's here that he cozies up to Reverend Rightwing, a Darth Vader–like demagogue who convinces Rush to pledge allegiance to Pat Robertson, Ronald Reagan and Old Country Buffet with sly one-liners like, "Hating the people God hates is a great way to share his eternal love." He also comes face to face with dirty hippies Barney Frank and Hillary Clinton, before their own meteoric rises to fame. In one of the shows most enduring gags, a young Frank can't help but turn every sentence he utters into a metaphor for gay sex.

As in Rod Blagojevich Superstar!, last year's smash homage to our fallen governor, writers Ed Furman and TJ Shanoff frame Limbaugh's meteoric rise as a series of musical numbers that lampoon Broadway biggies. As Rush cozies up to figures like Ann Coulter (a tepid parody, given Ann's own outrageous antics) and Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove (a sharp and funny nod to Abbott and Costello) they break into their own rendition of the musical Rent's "Five Hundred Twenty-five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes" set to Limbaugh's most offensive claims. Ditto the best musical number of the night, a version of the song "Totally Fucked," from Spring Awakening in which Clinton and Frank recognize the Democratic party's utter fecklessness. Second City nails Spring's Awakening's teen angst, right down to Bill T. Jones's vaunted choreography. Dreamgirls, Les Miserables and Wicked all get similar treatment.

As the show reaches its climax, we see liberalism winning out and Limbaugh hunched over in his studio blasting "Half-rican American" president Barack Obama. Limbaugh makes one final push for world domination by proclaiming his own divinity. The finale is the ultimate pie in Limbaugh's gargantuan face, but I won't give it away here. Instead I'll offer kudos to Mark Sutton who may not look the part, but nails Limbaugh's husky voice, cadence and pregnant pauses. Likewise, Karla L. Beard does a ton of heavy lifting as the narrator Shasta, a shadowy figure who isn't fully revealed until the musical's penultimate scene. There isn't a single weak link in the fine ensemble and I especially appreciated the ongoing banter between Colleen Murray and Kevin Sciretta as Clinton and Frank and also Cayne Collier and Bumper Carroll and Rumsfeld and Rove.

In the end, Rush Limbaugh! The Musical showcases just how sharp the Second City's claws are when it actually takes its gloves off. Yes, it takes plenty of aim at the left, but this is a tried and true liberal joyride—and a very funny one at that. By the time it reaches its show-stopping finale, the faces of the few conservatives in the audience were, dare we say it—red.

Rush Limbaugh! The Musical plays Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays (except Sunday 7) at the Second City e.t.c.