Article written by Jim Slotek - Toronto Sun, 4.5 out of 5 stars

Monday, July 23, 2007

You know you're watching a comedy sketch fated to live again in future Second City "best-of" shows when it gets loud applause in the middle of the sketch.

So it is with the first-act-closing Baseball sketch in Facebook of Revelations, the terrific 60th mainstage revue in Toronto Second City's history, a show so good, it's practically lightning in a bottle.

The scenario: It's the top of the 16th in a game tied 5-5 between the Blue Jays and Orioles, and the only pitcher left for Jays manager John Gibbons (Jim Annan) is a frightened kid called up from Double A. As played with real flopsweat by oversized, formidably talented newcomer Marty Adams, he's so paralyzed that all he seems able to do is shake off the increasingly furious catcher (fellow newbie Darryl Hinds) and throw repeatedly to first to check a runner who has had three knee operations and hasn't stolen a base since 1988.

Meanwhile, above, Scott Montgomery amplifies the laughs with the only dialogue in the sketch, a rat-a-tat cheerfully sarcastic Jerry Howarth-ish patter that includes asides like "I've shaved twice since this game started," and "You know you're in trouble when the mascot is giving you pitching tips."

It's the sketch everybody was raving about at intermission on opening night, but it wasn't the only one that hit a sublime chord. Director Bruce Pirrie kept things fresh, throwing plenty of stylistic changeups at the audience. There was straight spoof, as in an opening number that took dead aim at We Will Rock You, called Safe Bet: The Musical, a "commercial" for a musical made up of lame plot contrivances that are really just excuses for people to sing Boomer hits like Jack and Diane and Wanna Be Starting Something.

There was mind-f---ing of various sorts, including a trippy time-loop sketch about an H.G. Wells type inventor (Annan) and a villain (Adams) with a time machine that only goes back two minutes per use.

And there was even some clever politically-tinged pathos -- as when dad Montgomery has to explain to the kids (Adams and Lauren Ash) why mommy went to Afghanistan to fight. "Why mommy go there?" -- "Because we have a moral obligation" -- "What does that mean?" -- "Nobody knows what that means!"

There were two very good Rogers Cable 10 spoofs -- one an improv-heavy bit with Adams and co-host Montgomery as the stars of a show called I've Got A Show?, and the other with Hinds as the gangsta/pimp star of Max Visor Show -- Betcha Ass. In the latter, he cluelessly interviews a dog breeder (Karen Parker), who's "been breeding bitches for years." -- "I think I speak for everybody in my office now -- I did not know you could breed the bitches."

Ash and Parker even got to stage a pretty brutal catfight, in a sketch in which two women in neighbouring washroom stalls discover that one's husband and the other's boyfriend are the same person.

All grads of the Second City Touring Company, this cast is uniformly talented (though Adams has standout potential), with every single castmember having at least one shining moment.

For fans of Second City, it's a bit of a relief, given that it represents a 50% cast turnover from the last show. Shakeups like that don't always work out this well.