The cast of Mission Totally Possible.Katherine Fogler/Second City
Keep up to date with the weekly Nestruck on Theatre newsletter. Sign up today.
- Title: Mission Totally Possible
- Written and performed by : PHATT al, Andy Assaf, Andy Hull, Nkasi Ogbonnah, Hannah Spear, Jillian Welsh
- Director: Ashley Botting
- Company: Second City Toronto
- Venue: Comedy Bar Danforth
- City: Toronto, Ont.
- COVID-19 measures: Masks recommended, but not mandatory.
The Second City is still between homes in Toronto – in temporary residence at the cozy new Comedy Bar location on the Danforth while its new expanded complex is being built at the bottom of a building at One York Street, expected to open this fall.
The long-running comedy institution’s latest Canadian main stage show feels slightly adrift as well. That isn’t to say that Mission Totally Possible doesn’t generate laughs, only that it, like its title, lacks urgency and feels more like a collection of sketches that leaves the envelope decidedly where it is.
Directed by Ashley Botting, the sketch show begins with a group song that hints at an existential crisis of sorts within comedy in our current moment that may explain this. “Mass extinction is totally probable, but life is totally possible if you laugh,” the six comedians lined up for this show sing. Yet, it’s hard to pin down what tone is here. Ironic? Honest?
While there is a sprinkling of politics and a soupçon of satire to come, Mission Totally Possible gets the most laughs with comfortable sketches that are about families and relationships – and especially ones that lampoon ubiquitous ads.
It’s deeply satisfying, for instance, to see those Questrade commercials with all those well-dressed young people sharing investment advice get eviscerated at a time when inflation is taxing the grocery budget and saving, even when possible, seems pointless.
After a fellow played by Andy Hull gets the line from a pal “You’re not still investing with mom and dad’s guy?,” he explodes: “I live in Toronto … I’m getting renovicted from my basement apartment under an Ali Baba’s.”
Elsewhere in the show, the Egg Farmers of Canada ad about how it’s not weird to eat eggs for lunch seems to have inspired a strong sketch about a woman (the serially standout Hannah Spear) who deeply admires a female colleague who has the confidence to crack a hard-boiled egg at work; the sketch gets called back later to fine effect, as well.
Many of Mission Totally Possible’s sketches have a sweetness to them that produces more aws than guffaws.
Hull, the most classic white sketch-comedy guy here, has a monologue as a bro-turned-dad who named his children Auston and Matthews at a high school reunion, the twist being that he’s actually a loving father. Likewise PHATT al, a veteran of Canada’s music, rap and comedy scenes, goes old school in playing a God-fearing grandma from the Islands inquiring where his granddaughter (Nkasi Ogbonnah) has been all night. This is timeless stuff.
I wasn’t sure exactly what we were supposed to get from a scene where a man (Andy Assaf) reluctantly goes to therapy, other than that therapy and jokes about ska bands are good. It felt like a mostly earnest response to the Twitter meme that “Men will literally X instead of going to therapy.”
The show’s sketches that centre on Ogbonnah’s talents are the ones that move the needle most. Her nerdish persona combined with a deadpan delivery and confidence in tackling identity politics feels fresh – with a monologue about who the hot contemporary astronauts are (complete with PowerPoint presentation and raunchy swipe at Chris Hadfield) the most delightful, unexpected part of the show.
PHATT al, a veteran of Canada’s music, rap and comedy scenes, goes old-school in playing a god-fearing grandma from the Islands inquiring where his granddaughter has been all night.Katherine Fogler/Second City
I made a comment in my review of the last Second City Toronto show, Welcome Back to the Future, that while it was brave, it wasn’t quite brave enough to take on its own comedy franchise’s reckoning with systemic racism – but Ogbonnah, of course, proved me wrong this time around.
Bravo to that – but a scene involving a visit to Fort York where an animatronic John A MacDonald, William Lyon Mackenzie King and Justin Trudeau go haywire and tell the truth about their reigns as prime minister was a bit too much of a rehash of a funnier series of sketches from that last show.
Jillian Welsh, to mention the one cast member I haven’t yet, has great onstage energy. Her song in which an embryo sings about how it’s okay not to carry her to term if it’s not a good time felt more designed for likes rather than laughs, however.
It may be that the current Second City main stage cast and director can read a room – and know it’s best to stick to the uncontroversial-in-Canada, the silly, the sweet. Indeed, an audience member on opening night booed a character who briefly started talking like an online conspiracy guy, like a supporter of the Freedom Convoy.
I understood the impulse, but it threw off the timing of what was a very short sketch. It may simply be that what audiences really want right now are skits like the one about a wedding-band singer nursing a grudge against the groom. Leave the far-right for the future.
Keep up to date with the weekly Nestruck on Theatre newsletter. Sign up today.