World Cup fever is sweeping the country. Chicago may not be a host city, but it arguably has the next best thing besides loads of watch parties hosted at bars: “The Soccer Show” built on the city’s tradition of improv and sports spoofs.
Local comics Ian Mullen and Max Kantor are curating the improv variety show every Saturday of the World Cup at Annoyance Theatre. The production celebrates the global sporting event with tongue-in-cheek banter and commentary on the week’s matchups — but also blends sketches and improvised bits in an aim to tickle both dedicated soccer fans and locals whose familiarity with the game comes via social media posts.
Mullen, the show’s director and co-host, said the show was in the works for a year, after looking at the calendar and predicting a “soccer crazy summer.” Originally, Mullen and Kantor planned on penning a soccer-themed musical. With time running short, they settled on the idea of a variety show.
“The idea was basically, what can we do that’s fun? I don’t want to say an easy lift, but something that’s fun and can change every week with the World Cup. And here we are,” said Mullen.
Show segments include such riffs as how many David Beckham commercials in the row you can count during a game. (Mullen reports the answer is five.) Or, a recurring riff on “vuvuzelas,” the extremely loud long-horned instrument popularized by fans during the 2010 World Cup.
“We do a thing right now where we invite a local band called the ‘Vuzelas,’ where all of our cast members come out with their own vuvuzelas, and it is so loud in the small theater, it’s deafening,” said Mullen. “I feel like that’s what our show is in a nutshell.”
Kantor said the show is controlled chaos, before adding that it’s “avant-garde a little bit,” as the duo both have classic comedy backgrounds. The goal is for even non-soccer fans to have a great time.
“To make it accessible for everyone, we start the show with a World Cup recap where Ian recaps what really happened — the games, the stars, things like that,” Kantor said.. “Then, I just recap what happened to me and my personal life. We do a really nice job of not making the show just full of inside jokes of soccer.”
The two have a yin-and-yang quality to approaching the show. Mullen, a big time soccer fan, still plays weekly in an adult league (he recently banned Kantor from attending matches as his team has labeled him a jinx). Kantor is the typical American casual fan, who comedically insists on finding ways to fix or improve the sport.
“One thing we do every week is push boundaries,” said Kantor. “Soccer with a ball is boring. It’s been done for hundreds of years. So we covered the stage in astro turf, and Ian and I play soccer with a different object each week. Have you ever played soccer with a one-gallon jug of water?”
The show also includes weekly guest appearances from local soccer “luminaries.”
“The first guest was my physical therapist,” said Mullen. “I found out I have a torn labrum because of playing soccer in college. She came and dry needled me on stage. It was horrible.”
The next guest, billed as a player for the Chicago Fire, turned out to be an actor on NBCs “Chicago Fire,” who was actually cast in NBCs “Chicago Med,” but had all of his lines cut when the show aired. “We ended up doing his cut scenes on stage,” said Mullen.
The show is a little all over the place, but it’s intended to be a fun and wonky way to experience the excitement of the World Cup for both die-hards and lukewarm locals caught in the wave.
“We treat the World Cup as an umbrella topic,” said Kantor. “There’s so much that falls underneath, so we’re embracing the vibe and the spirit of it, versus like ‘let’s talk about the technique of the game.’”