By Venus Zarris

Years ago a Chicago director told me that the general rule of thumb in theater is, gay men are funny and lesbians are depressing. Over the years, that notion has fluctuated back and forth. Depending on whom you’re watching, reading or talking to the LGBT community generates the entire range of emotion. This is true partly because we’re human and so our experiences are universal and partly because we’ve gone mainstream and so looking into a window on our lives is less a trip to the zoo for straight America and more a look in the mirror.

With this homo-homogenization has come a watering down of our art. Much of the bite and fight that used to be reflective of our social struggles has been replaced with complacently average expression, tame depictions and safe clichés. That is why when you experience something from LGBT artists that has an edge; it is refreshing and inspiring. That is why GayCo’s The Audacity of Nope or How I Fell for a Pansy Scheme is more than just an extremely entertaining sketch comedy show, rather it is a brilliantly subversive reminder that we’re not Ward and June Cleaver, we still have a long way to go and we can still have fun getting there.

But please don’t let the initial social analysis scare you off. The Audacity of Nope is a certified laugh riot! I’ll spare you the details so as not to ruin the scene, but when the phrase ‘tittie mountain avalanche’ was uttered I almost choked on the laughs. This phrase has become my new mantra and might very well end up being the name of the next pet that I acquire. I envision myself calling the dog from across the apartment, “Tittie Mountain Avalanche! Get off the sofa!”

Not shying away from depictions of the less mainstream aspects of the LGBT community, one scene shows an adoring slave reflecting on the love he has for his brutally domineering master. His tone of voice mimics that of a happy housewife in a Lifetime Channel take on the domestic bliss of dominance and submission.

GayCo’s cleverness ranges from political, to personal to irreverently absurd. Climatologists from Brigham Young University blame catastrophic climate change on homosexuality, sighting that in 2005 the success of “Brokeback Mountain” brought about Hurricane Katrina. One groom comforts the second thoughts of his intended husband-to-be by explaining that after the wedding “If you don’t want to be married anymore you can just cross the border into Illinois.” Hungry space aliens abduct a couple and try to force them to have sex in order to procreate more ‘earth meat’ but the lesbian couple they chose informs the aliens that they only have sex on their birthdays.

GayCo started in 1996 when The Second City Outreach Program began its first Gay/Lesbian workshop series. Since that time it has taken The Second City training and forged a body of work that continues delight audiences and take risks. While many of today’s Second City productions play it safe and tone it down for the tourists, GayCo plows full steam ahead into the world of impertinently challenging and insanely hysterical comedy.

“One man’s hate crime is another man’s pep talk.” is not just a hilarious line from one of the show’s funniest sketches, it is also the truth of GayCo’s genius. Without sermonizing or grandstanding, they remind us that we need to continue fighting the good fight and they accomplish this with impressive wit, contagious camp and explosive humor.

Gather your friends and rush to catch this side-splitting treat. Regardless of your sexual orientation, if you like to laugh The Audacity of Nope or How I Fell for a Pansy Scheme is not to be missed!

3 ½ STARS

(“The Audacity of Nope or How I Fell for a Pansy Scheme” runs Wednesdays at 8pm @ The Annoyance Theatre & Bar, 4830 N. Broadway, Chicago. 773-561-4665)

The Annoyance Theatre & Bar - Audacity of Nope

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