Live Review: Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival Day 1

Imagine showing up at McDonald's and getting Kobe beef on your Big Mac. That was my experience last night at opening night of Sketchfest at Stage 773 when I went into the my first show, the Mary Kay Letourneau Players + Mountain Dawn, having no idea that openers Mary Kay consisted of Katherine shorthands Katie Rich and Kate Duffy. Both performers are marvelous in their own right, but put together they created a rich tapestry of character-driven scenes that won me over almost every time.

I enjoyed watching these fine actors portray elderly ladies yakking at a wedding, hopeless Russian immigrants recalling the endless breadlines and working-class girls recovering from a late-night bender.  The scenes were patient, grounded and immensely rewarding. A musical tribute to Rahm Emanuel toward the end was flat, grating and derivative of the kinds of song parodies that Second City does so well. But all in all, I enjoyed spending time in the complex worlds created by Rich and Duffy.

I enjoyed, but was ultimately less impressed, by Mountain Dawn, a group of performers that includes Kat Barker, Colleen Doyle, Nancy Friedrich and Kristen Studdard. The problem wasn't that these ladies didn't produce character work that was as compelling as the Mary Kay Letourneau Players. Rather, this was a collection of mostly solo scenes with duets sprinkled throughout and I badly wanted to watch this group play together as a foursome.

The work was nevertheless solid. In one scene, rivalries and insecurities bubble to the surface as two high school juniors (Friedrich and Studdard) contemplate auditioning for their school's production of the Music Man. In another, Barker plays an obnoxious wedding guest and Colleen Doyle enjoyed one of the show's most enduring moments as a realtor faced with selling what is possibly the worst house in the world. The foursome came together for an uproarious finale. If only we'd gotten to see more of that.

But all in all, I'm calling day one a success. Stay tuned.