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Second City returns to ‘Deface the Nation’

By Loren Keller

“Whatever side of the aisle you sit on,” goes the Englert Theatre’s current television commercial, Second City’s upcoming “Deface the Nation” performances will offer “a fair and balanced skewering of Obama and McCain.”

But that doesn’t mean members of the six-person traveling comedy troupe lack clear opinions of their own about the candidates running in the presidential election that's less than a month away.

“We’re kind of yellow dogs,” says Shad Kunkle, a Fairfield native who last performed at the Englert with the troupe in January. “People would consider Second City to be a bit liberal.”

Corridor audiences will have four chances to decide for themselves this week when the troupe that spawned "SCTV" and popular comedians including Stephen Colbert and Tina Fey brings its politically-charged performances to the Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., at 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Tickets are $22 to $27 and available online, by calling (319) 688-2653 or at the Englert Box Office.

”Deface the Nation” promises to poke fun at both political parties and a variety of pundits, and will feature more scripted material and less improvisational comedy than that offered by the “One Nation, Under Blog” shows presented by Second City at the Englert in January.

Kunkle says this week’s performances have required a lot more preparation.

“The preparation for improv was our 10 years of training before we ever got a chance to go up there and do this stuff,” he says. “As difficult as the improv looks to the audience, it’s actually the thing that we’re more comfortable with. We have more margin for error and we can’t possibly prepare for it, so why worry about it?”

While there is no shortage of political humor on television these days — including Colbert’s show on Comedy Central and Fey’s appearances as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” — the Second City performances will be a little different.

“We take the satire and stretch it out a bit,” Kunkle says. “The fact that we take our time with those same jokes and we set up a world means the payoff is even greater for us. Because we have the freedom to have your attention for two hours on stage versus the 15 seconds they’re trying to get you to play attention to when you flip through the channels.”

The troupe’s three men (Kunkle, Brian Jack and Tim Sniffen) and three women (Katie Rich, Tara DeFrancisco and Sayjal Joshi) will put on the Englert shows with a stage manager and music director. The setup is fairly simple and a minimum of props are used.

“We like to leave that up to your imagination,” Kunkle says.

What they have no shortage of is material inspired by the candidates.

“I’ve never written as much in my life as I have about Sarah Palin,” Kunkle says. “Her participation has been a real blessing for comedy writers everywhere and possibly the scariest thing in the world for America.”

So it comes as little surprise that Kunkle and Co. favor their hometown presidential candidate, Barack Obama.

“We’re all pulling for him, without a doubt,” he says. “That being said, our jobs as comedians are to make you think about everything. We definitely talk about Barack Obama and all the things he represented. It’s not like we knock John McCain – there’s very little to knock. He’s got an outstanding patriotic history with the country and back in the day, if there was one Republican we liked, it was McCain… Without a doubt this community tries to encourage people to think about the issues and take time to consider all aspects.”