As we predicted here, Jackie Mason's new Broadway show is closing in a hurry. It opened on November 19 and the last performance is November 30. Reviews ranged from bad to really bad. William Stevenson over at Broadway.com, for instance, wrote: "Charging Broadway prices for this comic catastrophe is truly criminal. It's only worth paying if you want to be able to say you've seen the worst musical comedy on Broadway in recent memory." For some reason, when I came across that, I had a mental image of Mason reading the notice and saying, "Well, it could have been worse…"
I ordinarily do not believe in reviewing something I haven't seen, and certainly not before it comes out. I wince a bit when a movie or TV show is announced and the Internet Experts chime in and declare it hopeless, just based on a one or two sentence precis. But some projects have such a kiss-o'-death air about them, it's hard to adopt a wait-'n'-see attitude. Just about everything Jackie Mason has touched in his professional career has flopped except his pure stand-up act, and even that's long since lost its potency. It's not that he's getting up there in years…Shelley Berman and Bob Newhart are both older and still very fresh and funny. It's that like a novelist with only one great book in him, Mason has just so much to offer and no more. Some friends of mine and I once put all three of those gents on a list we compiled of The Top Ten Stand-Up Comedians of all time. When I discuss it with folks, I need to underscore that Mason is on there for what he was doing twenty or thirty years ago.
Anyway, Mason will go off and tour with his stand-up and eventually come back to Broadway with another one-man show. The last time I was in New York, I walked past the theater where such a show was playing and, about an hour before his performance, Mason was out on 45th Street, urging passers-by to come see him. I admire the longevity and the perseverance. But based on the last Jackie Mason show through which I suffered, he'd need a loaded revolver to get me in there. And manacles to keep me.