After a rousing hour of crippling quips and piercing observations, funnyman regained the stage Saturday at the and asked the crowd what he missed.
Nearly every one of the 5,000 in attendance hollered their favorites: “Dora!” Snowcone!” “Elevator!” “Donut Lady!”
The side-stitching Regan acknowledged the honor that comes with thousands screaming for your best bits and romped through a montage that left the entire house wiping their tears. With a physical comedy conjuring the late Chris Farley and a keen, clean observational monologue suggestive of Seinfeld, Regan’s routine merrily elevates the mundane.
His deft writing travels the well-worn pathways of countless comedians — a trip to the doctor, getting older, mingling at parties, hiring a handyman, riding elevators — yet delivers uproarious insight. Combined with his face-twisting, lurching and emphatically buffoonish animation, Regan rolled the theater’s diverse crowd with a non-stop barrage of laughs. Pre-teens doubled over in convulsive giggling with their parents. Dates flirted through fits of guffaws. Some standing O’d their favorites while others gasped for breath during the farcical blasts.
I’d love to tell you more of his best moments — responding to a shadow-boxing hello from a pal with “some shadow polo,” or how a “pool of blood creeping into the waiting room” is the only valid reason for a doctor’s tardiness — but my notes are tear-stained, unintelligible scribbles.
Sparked by California comedian Gary Brightwell — whose intro line asking Denverites if they expected the town to grow out to the airport with a quip about a $140 airline ticket and $200 cab ride, culled rousing response — Regan owned the house Saturday. His casual, genial approach included new spins on older jokes and spur-of-the-moment chestnuts introduced with lines like, “Here’s a joke I don’t have a place for.”
Clocking in at 80 minutes, Regan’s witty battery left face muscles aching as the theater released the crowd. Backs were slapped, jokes retold and laughter rang as the Regan-roiled throng skipped into the night.
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Jason Blevins is a strange dancer, but that has never stopped him.
