In a city of millions, you know there’s gotta be a good laugh to be found somewhere. And you’ll find plenty of them at that burgeoning institution of mirth on Broadway at Belmont. The Laugh Factory’s Wednesday night Supply and Demand show may have had a smallish crowd but the laughs bordered on the obese.
Comedy comes in just two flavors: stand-up and improv. Thanks to Second City’s outsized success, Chicago is known as an improv town. Laugh Factory is out to change all that and return stand-up to dominance here in the city. There’s some evidence they’re having an impact given the number of bars featuring its brand of comedy. And the fact that the Reader has named them best comedy club three years running has got to mean something.
On this particular muggy summer night, the show’s opening segments teetered like a new born wildebeest on brand new legs. The host was trying too hard and the first comic seemed bent on self-destruction. He succeeded. Then, as if by merciful magic, Adam Burke claimed the mic and the rest of the evening did a one eighty. Hailed as the best comedian in Chicago in 2015, he hit the stage like a Tasmanian devil spouting all kinds of delicious madness.
For some reason, the best comedians tend to be those who sneer at safety nets. They just floor it and let things take their course. When you’re as smart and adroit as most of Wednesday night’s featured performers turned out to be; its win-win for both comic and audience. Daring is rewarded with howls of approval.
A proud green card holder from Ireland, Burke popped jokes like he was cracking a whip. They stung your brain just as much as they wreaked havoc on your funny bone. Comics have an insight into the world that could almost be read as a curse. That they can retool that understanding into something humorous makes them heroes.
Burke was followed by five other comedians who matched or exceeded his bristling comedic romp. Ronnie Ray, a stalwart on the city’s comedy stages and whose roots extend south, went the self-effacing route. Just when you’d started feeling sorry for him, he’d drop the façade and slam you with a solid punch line.
Kellye Howard, another local circuit veteran, was a beast. Prowling the stage like a praying mantis as she mocked the perfect physique of one of teenage daughters, she also took on the rich ironies of trading in the hood for a middle-class existence in the suburbs. Howard’s piercing intelligence and fearless wit meshed to turn her routine into a raucous thrill ride.
The Laugh Factory takes pride in the fact that 95% of the comedians they work with are local. And their stable of comics is huge. With that kind of army, they just might achieve their goal of becoming the #1 comedy club in the country. Who has that title today? Madison’s Comedy Club on State. Not too far to go to check out the competition.
