“A good comedy team is all about learning to compromise,” says Joe Dempsey, a hint of sadness in his voice. “You may fight, you may bicker, you may have your clashes of ego. But in the end you find a way to reconcile your differences, because the show must go on.”
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Over the years, they claim, they made several fruitless attempts to reunite. Once, when they were both struggling with alcoholism, they both passed out before reaching the theater. Not long after that they started arguing during rehearsals. “Joe insisted that I gain 50 pounds because “fat is funny,”‘ says Rogers. “I disagreed, and we settled the dispute with punches. I’m bigger than Joe anyway, so I left him with some serious damage. We were never the same after that.”
David Razowsky, another Second City alum who appeared on Quick Wits, was so impressed he begged them to let him direct their first show. “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would get the chance to work with, much less direct, a show with Dempsey and Rogers,” he writes in a press release for the duo’s show Oh, By the Way . . ., which will run through July at Cafe Voltaire. “Their skill and comic prowess make my knuckles tingle and clean my spine of cumbersome pathos.”
Oh, By the Way . . . will be at Cafe Voltaire, 3231 N. Clark, through July 28. Performances are at 9 PM on Thursdays and Fridays; tickets are $7. Call 862-8631.
