In two days, Jackie Mason is scheduled to open his latest one-man show, “Much Ado About Everything,” on Broadway. But for a couple of wonderful weeks in October and early November, Mason was performing at the local Zanies outposts.
Many of the people watching the remarkable Mason at the Wells Street and Vernon Hills comedy clubs were unaware of his upcoming New York show, did not know that much of what they were hearing was material being massaged into shape.
For Mason, Chicago has become a comfortable testing ground for new material, and one would like to imagine he returns here so frequently because our city’s crowds are smarter, offer a better sounding board or are more nurturing than anywhere else.
Alas, the reason he returns here so often is . . .
“The restaurants,” Mason said. “The restaurants here I love more than anyplace but in New York.”
But what about the audiences?
“Wherever I go, the reactions to me are always the same. It is no different in Pittsburgh or in Ohio,” he said. “People don’t come to see me if they don’t know me and, basically, there is no great strategy. I see what’s funny, what’s fascinating to the people. But the point for me is to not just be funny. What is the significance of this thing? What is the substance? What is the message in all this madness?”
Just listening to Mason talk can tire a person. Observing his performance, one can understand what New York Times critic Walter Kerr meant when he reviewed Mason’s first solo Broadway show, “The World According to Me!” in 1986. He called Mason “the Mozart of comedy,” saying that his performances were a series of verbal rhythms.
This was apparent when he was here. He remains as energetic a performer as there is in comedy, with a distinctive delivery and agile observational eye.
Much of his material is familiar. Mason knows that his audiences want to hear his tried-and-true routines. But for the final 30 minutes of his shows, he dived into contemporary matters, assailing President Clinton and some of the crowd vying for the chief executive’s job. Some of it did not work. Most of it did.
“But you never really know,” said Mason. “Even me, after all these years in this business . . . even me, I have no idea what will work and what won’t.
“About Broadway, I feel a combination of excitement and nervousness. The critics, they are out to destroy you. There is no room for doubt in your favor. They find something wrong and they distort it into a huge tragedy. I make a reference to Nixon and they say, I’m sick and tired of this old Jew.’ “
