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This Barbeque Is Well-Done One-man comedy show lives up to its billing
REVIEW BY RODGER PILLE

There's nothing wrong with a modest show. Too often a theatrical production sets out to do too much and please too many. You've seen the billing: "It's a feel-good, gritty, realistic, fantastic adult drama for kids of all ages." The disappointment that follows those shows overshadows what little good they had o start with.

Jeff Wayne's one-man picnic, Big Daddy's Barbeque, now showing at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater, does not do that. Instead, it delivers exactly what it promises: a lone white man's rant on the ills of the world.

Admittedly, the premise isn't too enticing. Who wants to pay to see a guy fuss about life when you could just sit down with your father for about two hours and get the same gist? That's where Big Daddy's humor comes in.

Wayne, a Newport native returning to his roots after a successful stint in comedy clubs and theaters on the West Coast, knows how to make his diatribes entertaining. Even when he's talking about capital punishment, welfare lines and any other socially "sensitive" topic du jour, Wayne finds a way to make you laugh despite your uneasiness. Or perhaps because of it.

Vegetarians. Feminists. African-Americans. White trash. Alcoholics. Wives. Husbands. Convenience store clerks. No one in the audience walks away unscathed. His take on vigilant non-smokers: "Non-smokers say things like, 'Second-hand smoke is worse for you than the original smoke.' Based on that, you may as well smoke." Not even Wayne's apparent archetype, the oppressed white male, gets off without a hot grilling. Still, his self-deprecation is far more subtle. As Wayne roasts gays in the military, for instance, are we laughing at the jokes or at how sophomoric a grown man can be?

The quick two-act show takes place first in Big Daddy's backyard. He comes on with a plate of raw beef and a spatula. As he kicks back with a beer, Wayne lets the character reveal himself to the audience immediately. Vulgar and opinionated, Big Daddy begins to ramble.

The second act finds Big Daddy in his only sanctuary: his basement den. As he sips Jim Beam and listens to Johnny Mathis albums, he reveals a deeper layer of himself. Wayne's character digs the philosophies of Ayn Rand, the comic ability of Jerry Lewis and the hustling style of Pete Rose.

"He'll be in the Hall of Fame some day," he says. "I'll bet on it."

Most of Wayne's jokes are good. Not great, but not bad either. He interacts with the audience and improvises quite a bit, as during the Aug. 10 performance when he noticed a newspaper lying on the floor and, to big laughs, zinged The Enquirer's poor review of his show.

The night would have been better served with more parent-children relationship material-the little he had is golden. And strangely absent was any mention of religion. Perhaps Wayne remembered from growing up that in Cincinnati some targets still were taboo.

Big Daddy's Barbeque hasn't charted new comic territory. It's Archie Bunker without Meathead. It's King of the Hill without the funny voices. It's Al Bundy without the hand down the pants.

But Wayne still makes it an enjoyable evening. After all, there's a reason it's been done hundreds of times before-it strikes a chord that many of us enjoy hearing.


Big Daddy's Barbecue
(It's OK to be a Married)
(Ice House Annex. Pasadena77 seats; $12.50 top)

Bob Fisher and the Ice House Annex present a play in two acts by Jeff Wayne.

Big Daddy----------- Jeff Wayne

In this era of civil unrest, Jeff Wayne is a hilarious one-man riot. In his stage performance as Big Daddy, he manages to ridicule and lampoon virtually every politically correct idea, group or trend that has crossed the American social landscape in the past 15 years-all from the affable, blustering backyard perspective of his '90s version of Will Rogers.

Format is Big Daddy's regular barbecue, where he invites guests over to lambaste feminists, vegetarians, nonsmokers, recovered alcoholics, yuppies, Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael and anybody who doesn't like Johnny Mathis.

Big Daddy, who works as a postman, has two main interests in life-the rotten state of the country and his wife, Phyllis, who never appears onstage, but is nonetheless a powerful presence in his life.

In fact, Big Daddy quite fairly points out that his wife has her own side of this story, one that is bound to be equally colorful.

Big Daddy, front. his lowly perch at the post office, is clearly leading the charge in the revenge of the white male, and for the return of his version of common sense to the world.

He's a postman who reads Ayn Rand and quotes Schopenhauer, which strains credulity, particularly in the second act as he waxes even more philosophical as he waits for his wife to drag him to the opera "The Death of Klinghoffer."

However, this armchair philosopher proudly wears his "white trash" label for all to see, which largely redeems him from William F. Buckley stuffiness.

A great deal of credit goes to director Ted Lange, who helped Wayne shape his long-running stand-up act into theatrical form.

The theater format not only permits Wayne to conduct his monologue without the audience heckling that is often expected or even welcomed at comedy clubs, but it also provides Wayne the necessary distance from the hilarious but controversial stage character that he has created.

The character of Big Daddy seems ideal for a television series, a '90s rendition of Archie Bunker. With the Democrats in the White House, television audiences may finally be ready to laugh at political correctness. And Big Daddy's more than willing to lead the comedy charge.

-Hoyt Hilsman

"White males, they say, are feeling a bit put upon these days. (They are) forced to take what seems like personal responsibility for everything from slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, to the tobacco lobby and the ozone layer. It's no wonder the average working stiff is a little shocked, maybe a little hurt, and just a bit teed off."

"Well, that so called angry white male has now found it's comedic voice in the person of comic Jeff Wayne, who hosts a one man show known as Big Daddy's Barbecue. The only things on the menu however, are the audience's politically correct sensibilities."

"Big Daddy's Barbeque is like Al Bundy with a brain and a point to make. (Wayne's) humor is clever and satirical without being mean. Because, while Wayne pokes fun at everyone, he is all too willing to laugh at himself."


'Daddy' Roasts Burgers and Liberals
By RAY LOYND
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Theater: Political incorrectness is taken to ultraconservative and uproarious extremes in Jeff Wayne's one-man play at the Icehouse Annex.

It's hard drinking in L.A. Everybody seems to be a recovering alcoholic.

"That's the first hint of political incorrectness in Jeff Wayne's outrageously funny, blue-collar one-man show, "Big Daddy's Barbecue (It's O.K. to Be a White Male)" at the Icchouse Annex in Pasadena.

If this second in an Annex series of solo performance pieces is any gauge, the experimental Icehouse shift from stand-up comedy to theater is off to a rousing start.

As he strides onto his patio in his "Kiss the Chef" apron, flipping a burger over the coals and drawing on a Miller, Wayne tells all of us-his back yard guests&emdash;"Hey, lighten up. It's OK to smoke."

In fact, such is his disdain for the clean-air/liberal/environmental /dolphin-loving "in my face" spotted owl fanatic that he wants you to smoke.

Later, touching the pulse of every "Falling Down" Michael Douglas wannabe, Big Daddy, breaking into a wicked gleam, asks, "Why don't we teach the guy at the 7-Eleven how to speak English? " What salvages Wayne's blitzkrieg in the shape of Every White-Man, for whom he refuses to feel guilty, is his sense of irony and humor about himself. He unleashes a hilarious parody of a post L.A.-riot scene with minorities running for cover and screaming, "The white people are coming!"

He quaffs a draft, a merry twinkle in his eye, and says, "You've got all these people in the welfare line complaining about waiting six hours for their check. I wait 40 hours for mine, and I work for it."

Did we say politically incorrect? In a new stretch-some might say low point-of incorrectness, our host, a mailman who quotes Ayn Rand and plays Johnny Mathis records, even satirizes the tragic fate of paralyzed ocean liner passenger Leon Klinghoffer, the wheelchair-bound Jewish man who was hurled overboard by Arab terrorists some years back

Al Bundy? Howard Stern? Rush Limbaugh? Wayne's deceptively crafted, self-described "white trash from Kentucky" reduces that conservative bunch to a lounge act.The full house on a recent night was half white and half black, and the blacks, particularly the women, howled the loudest. There's something in Wayne's affable bravado and his zestful delivery that finally breaks up even those who initially appear uncomfortable at such right-of-center

fusillades.Perhaps more surprising than the material, which is laced with raunchy imagery, is the director. The show, which levels a scathing eye at minorities and the homeless-not to mention homosexuals, feminists and the whole afternoon talk show gaggle of "wimps"&emdash; is directed by Ted Lange, an African American actor and director.

Lange has shaped Wayne's seemingly offhand performance into more of a two-act play than a stand-up routine. After the barbecue, Big Daddy relaxes in his private den, wearing a tux, waiting to take his wife to a dreaded opera. He spins Mathis platters (the big old 12-inch records), knocks off a song rendition of his beloved Noel Coward and reads from the pages of his cherished alter ego, the ultraconservative Ayn Rand

Of course, you wouldn't expect a mailman to be into Rand and "Atlas Shrugged," but then again, why not? As Big Daddy snarls that "weakness drives me crazy; I like power," he touches a nerve in his audience, perhaps the left most of all.

The liberals in the house may be stifling their laughter a shade, but deep down they're in sync, laughing deeply, because this guy is funny.


White Whine

Many comedians admire Jerry Lewis. Few also promote Ayn Rand. At the Improv on Wednesday, Jeff Wayne cited both in his one-man show, "Big Daddy's Barbeque," which runs through July 26.

In a two-act excursion into the mind of a put-upon White Male, Wayne's Big Daddy is an opinionated postal worker, not so much disgruntled as confused to find himself under fire. After all, he objects, "I didn't take the Indian's land - I put a down payment on a house."

Though Big Daddy's arguments may be debatable, his jokes are rarely antagonistic. Unlike much of what passes for conservative humor, Big Daddy doesn't stridently attack the beliefs of others. He celebrates his own meat-eating, cigarette-smoking, Jim Beam-drinking lifestyle. A

Johnny Mathis fan since 14-when his pals were rocking to Grand Funk Railroad-Big Daddy illuminates a key to the liberal-conservative split when he dances to Mathis crooning " I Say a Little Prayer": Liberals listened to the Aretha Franklin version. the traditional values Big Daddy seems to long for may also reflect

Wayne's nostalgia for the traditional comic-the glad-handing smiler who told wife and drunk jokes and made fun of everyone with impunity. But Wayne is smarter than the Sheckys of yore. Instead of emulating the loudmouth Limbaugh style, his Big Daddy recalls another working stiff, Ralph Kramden-when Ralph was in a good mood.

Ultimately, if you can take a joke, Big Daddy will welcome you around his Weber. Wayne's inclusively pointed comedy had a mixed crowd sharing the laughter. After cheerfully venting spleen on most of today's touchy topics, Wayne ended the show on a charming note. No one should take real offense. Except, perhaps, the French.

--Dave Nuttycombe


SAN DIEGO ' S WEEKLY
Adam Parfrey

There is nothing so repellent as modern stand-up comedy. Something died when borscht was emptied out of the belt and the notches were tightened with political correctness. Real humor does not emerge from the constraints of heightened sensitivity, it explodes from the suppressed depths of an id under siege.

If humor is the great leveler, Jeff Wayne drives a monster steamroller. His one-man show at Pasadena's Ice House, Big Daddy's Barbecue (It's OK to Be a White Male), is brilliantly situated in white male comfort zones: the first act at a red meat cookout in Big Daddy's back yard, moving after intermission to Big Daddy's den as he awaits a dreaded evening out with his wife at the avant-garde opera The Death of Klinghoffer. In these regions of eminent domain, Wayne can speak his mind easily, fluently, and affably, interacting with the audience as if they were co-conspirators. His uproarious fusillades against sanctimonious feminism, environmentalism, vegetarianism, and the entire variegated culture of complaint doesn't feel so much like ultraconservatism as a return to common sense.

Strangely enough, women and blacks are the audience members who are seen laughing the loudest, which seems to prove Big Daddy's contention that white males are too busy cowering from the accusing finger. In a hilarious segment, Wayne pictures himself as an exhibit on a dusty diorama at a museum. "Look, son, there's a white man who did not feel guilty."

What separates Wayne from a blowhard like Rush Limbaugh is the endearing way he clings to his cultural heroes, be they ever so outdated. It's interesting to hear this self-described white trash hillbilly from Kentucky swoon over the philosophy of Ayn Rand: the urbane witticisms of Noel Coward, and the sounds of Johnny Mathis, a female-gay-black trinity that did not require self-pity or affirmative action to make their own indelible impact on a misogynist-homophobic-racist culture.