Second City invades Walmart Country!

Last weekend, a little taste of Chicago made its way to Northwest Arkansas by way of the Second City touring troupe.  They have been advertising for weeks, and Doug and I finally got around to ordering tickets to their show Second City for President.

After a lazy Saturday morning and a fairly active Saturday afternoon (we took advantage of the nice weather and did a 6 mile walk-- 3 miles up the trail and then back), we set out for the theatre, conveniently located a 10-minute walk away.  We also stopped at Orange Leaf first, a delightful frozen yogurt shoppe (yes, I'm just going to spell it like that, get over it) on Dickson Street.  You dump frozen yogurt into large cups then add on whatever toppings you like--fruit, candy, caramel, cookies, cereal....and then you eat your concoction.  It's always delicious and made for a nice pre-theatre treat.

At the theatre itself, we had excellent seats in the 5th row center, and the show was a solid two hours (with a ten minute intermission).  The five-person troupe did a mix of scripted comedy and improv, with more on the scripted comedy scenes and comedy songs side.  The majority of the sketches were politically themed, or at least "current" themed (e.g. financial crisis) and they did a pretty good job of staying balanced, at least on the surface level. 

The only real downside to the show was seeing it in Walmart Country amongst a bunch of douche-bags.  To be clear, I am not saying that the entire population of Northwest Arkansas is douchey--far from it.  Nor am I saying that the entire audience was d-baggin'.  I think we just happened to be sitting in a douchy section, and I say this with complete liberal bias.  Some examples:  they did a polling skit and asked a few audience members for their political views (then made fun of them).  The first person was asked "Are you a democrat or republican?" and replied "Republican."  The pollster then asked "At what age did you realize you hated poor people?" and the male partner of the couple sitting next to me slapped his leg and exclaimed "It's me! That's me!"  That dude and his wife also had their cell phones out for most of the show, which was distracting and made me want to get all teacher-y on them.

Perhaps more obviously, though, was at the end of another sketch when a troupe member implied she would be voting for Obama.  As the lights went out, the charming fellow in front of me yelled "Communist!"  This was the same charming fellow who, when the audience was asked to provide an example of something said earlier in the day, screamed out "Tittie sprinkles!"  Classy all around.