"The Second City" is a Chicago original, and has given a start to numerous comedic geniuses. Some names that stood out in the playbill's list of Alumni were Joan Rivers, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and John Candy. I believe most of the original cast of Saturday Night Live honed their craft on the improv stage here.

We arrived early - a good thing, since tickets are not for a particular seat. No, instead someone walks you onto the floor, and shoehorns you into a tiny seat at a tiny little table, right up next to your neighbor. Have you seen those guys that work as people pushers on the Japanese subways? They might learn something from Second City. Comparing notes afterwards, my husband and I agreed that no fire marshall had ever attended one of these shows.

But once the show started, I completely forgot about the elbow in my back and my nagging claustrophobia. The show playing that night was "Between Barak and a Hard Place", and we laughed so hard we cried. Some of the humor was political, some of it was topical, all of it was great. These guys (and gals) really know their stuff.

There are two shows on Saturdays, and we had tickets to the later one. If you're going, be sure to choose this show - take a nap during the day if you have to, but definitely make it to the later show. This one gives you an extra hour of hilarity after the main event. After the feature show is over, the cast comes back out and does an hour or so of improv sketches, with suggestions for topics shouted out from the audience.

I wouldn't suggest the Second City for those who don't enjoy adult humor or are easily offended by jabs at your favorite politician. Many of the jokes were somewhat graphic (especially the bonus improv). If you're going, keep an open mind.

Showtime is 8pm from Tuesday to Saturday, with a second show at 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Sundays only have one show at 7pm. You can get tickets online at The Second City's website. Tickets are more expensive Fridays and Saturdays.

Trying to describe comedy has to be one of the more frustrating writing tasks, so when it comes to Second City, the phrase "You had to have been there" is an overworked cliché. But, really, you had to have been there. Much of the sharpest comedy is visual, and the unexpected sight gag is something of a specialty of Second City, which is widely regarded as one of the best comedy troupes in North America. Everyone (or almost everyone) knows its alumni include the likes of Dan Akroyd, Alan Arkin, John Candy, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Mike Meyers, Bill Murray, Stephen Colbert…the list goes on and on. The comedy bar is set as high as the audience’s expectations at Second City.

We took in the 11pm Saturday show of "Red Scare," foregoing the earlier 8pm seating, as we wanted to stick around for the after-the-show improv that follows the last show of the evening. We were glad we did, as while many of the comedy sketches for "Red Scare" were laugh-till-you cry funny, there was an engaging risk-taking edginess to the improv that followed.

"Red Scare," like many Second City reviews, had an underlying theme: the fault lines in American society. Given that this is a time when the nation seems more polarized than ever, the ensemble had plenty of material to work with. The review opened with three couples flinging random (and opposite) clichés at each other, a sort of dueling "values" piece. The ensemble consistently tapped into that undercurrent of anger with "others" that has metastasized throughout American public life. Some of the best sketches deftly exposed how artificial and pointless these opposing cultural stances are.

Much of Second City’s comedy is politically inspired, and while both left and right wingers receive sharp jabs, the right consistently provides the richest material and thus received the lion’s share. One memorable sketch poked fun at the military’s "Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell" policy regarding enlisting homosexuals during these times of low recruitment ("Don’t Leave! Don’t Leave!"). Another riffed on the rather absurd concept of black Republicans. But it was most refreshing when the audience ended up laughing at its own (largely liberal) biases.

A sketch based on the premise, "What if Shakespeare’s Ophelia and Juliet had had a gay friend?" reduced me to a helpless puddle of laughter. While it admittedly played into some simplistic stereotypes, the gay character’s "reality check" deflated these characters’ histrionic suicides so neatly that the humor wasn’t so much at the gay character’s expense as it was at Shakespeare’s.

And as for those sight gags? Well, you had to have been there.

Note: There are three Second City stages: Chicago Mainstage, Chicago e.t.c., and Donny’s Skybox. The largest venue, and by default the one that most people are referring to when they say "Second City," is the Mainstage. This is not to disparage the two smaller stages, but just to clarify a potentially confusing booking situation.

I spent four years in Chicago without seeing a performance by The Second City, the famed comedic ensemble that launched the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, and others, an oversight that I decided to remedy during my recent visit. While in Chicago I did attend and enjoy a comedy revue, but I just now realized when sitting down to write this journal that I still haven't seen an official The Second City performance. According to the souvenir program, what I did see was "Pants on Fire," a revue by e.t.c., a sort-of junior varsity The Second City that boasts such alumni as Horatio Sanz, and, um, Nia Vardalos, the star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Damn.

Five of us showed up at the intimate "studio" theater for the 11 PM Saturday performance of "Pants on Fire," and a hostess seated us close to the stage, behind a row of high school students who had already begun arguing about their curfews. To get us into the right mood, a waitress brought a drink menu with a selection of shooters that included Lemon Drop, Oatmeal Cookie, and Buttery Nipple ($4 each or $6 when served in a souvenir shot glass), but I decided to forgo the comically named drinks and ordered a Sam Adams ($4.50) instead.

The show opened with a sketch involving a presidential press secretary announcing that he would only tell the truth. Most of the bits that followed derived their humor from current events, but I laughed hardest at the few that involved physical comedy. In particular, the ensemble did a manic, very funny take on the good cop/bad cop routine, and cast member Frank Caeti did a remarkable impression of a giant, moon-walking baby.

While the sketches were a little hit or miss, the improv pieces were consistently uproarious. Audience members would call out random words, and the ensemble would do their best to perform comedy around these choices. Watching the performers walk a comedic tightrope without a net created a real tension in the audience, and when the performer invariably succeeded in making a joke, that tension easily exploded into laughter. A particularly good improv bit involved an audience member being interviewed and surreptitiously recorded, after which his voice was deftly mixed it into a rap song about the upcoming presidential election.

The e.t.c. ensemble performed for about 45 minutes, took a quick intermission, and the performed for another 45. After the show ended the performers announced that they'd like to try out some new material and welcomed the audience to stay. We had enjoyed the evening enough to want more, so we stayed an additional 45 minutes. True to their word, some of the comedy was still in development, but plenty of laughs were enjoyed during this unofficial third act.

You're always in good company at the world's most famous and productive breeding ground of Saturday Night Live performers and other comedic celebs -- Second City's alumni list includes Bill Murray, Joan Rivers, Elaine May, Chris Farley, Tina Fey, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Despite its high profile, the troupe's goal is still to make you life and feel at home. The auditorium is an intimate setting, with enough room for servers to bring you the brewski without obstructing your view. Dinner is always a good idea before a show -- the paltry menu features just bar food and pizza. But I digress -- the main event is the show, the show, the show. The show is made up of little nuggets of comedy sketches written by the cast, with improv slipping in after the intermission. When the show formally ends after its second set of the night, the performers usually do more improv jam. Big names such as Mel Gibson usually join in when they're in town and catching the show.

Theater on the Lake is owned by Chicago Park District, and you can view their schedule at www.chicagoparkdistrict.com. Their website directions tell you how to get there by bicycle, and I saw plenty people arriving by bike. After all, if you're going to Chicago to enjoy the lakeside, stay on the shore in the evening and you don't have to miss the theater scene. You don't have to dress up, either - shorts, even lycra, acceptable.

We saw a Lillian Hellman play, "Another Part of the Forest," performed by the Eclipse Theater Company. The play was wonderfully acted and staged and the theater small enough to make the performance even more special.

One drawback was the temperature. Perhaps the theater is air-conditioned. I'm not sure. There are ceiling fans, but the little hand-held plastic fans all guests were given at the door were kept busy all night, a few hundred of them going at once. This may have been appropriate for a Southern family drama, but it was distracting. I still enjoyed the play and will return to the Theater on the Lake, since they do such literary masterpieces as "The Cherry Orchard" (the week after I was there, darned, for it's my favorite).

To get to the theater, you must take the CTA red line to the Fullerton Avenue stop, then walk east all the way to the Theater, just a mile (their directions insist), maybe a mile and a half. We enjoyed the walk out Fullerton and back to the CTA because it is a pleasant neighborhood of brick & brownstone walk-ups with well-planted little yards, intriguing architecture, and plenty of people out and about, walking dogs and visiting. We felt like we lived there.