Wayne Brady: Fresh, relevant and funny

By Joe Brown (contact)

Monday, July 27, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Leila Navidi

Actor and comedian Wayne Brady, 37, performs Wednesday at the Venetian Showroom. His multifaceted show combines improv comedy, singing and dancing.

If I had to pick just one show that represents the best of everything contemporary Las Vegas has to offer, I would pick, without hesitation, Wayne Brady and his “Making %@it Up” act at the Venetian.

Brady has been called the best “all-around” performer on the Strip, and he really does it all: comedy, impressions, singing and dancing.

“What about hot ladies?” I hear you asking.

Brady’s show has those, too ... in a way. More about that later.

Brady, 37, has proved himself an MVP in whatever medium he chooses, making waves on stage, in movies and on records, but he made his name and fame on TV, winning Emmy Awards for his part on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?,” “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” and a self-titled talk show.

Like “Whose Line,” the bulk of Brady’s Vegas act relies on standard improv games, using unpredictable suggestions supplied by the audience, which guarantees a substantially different show every night.

Boisterously backed by male dancers, Brady opened with an improvised rap, incorporating polysyllabic words shouted out by the crowd (“supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “antidisestablishmentarianism” will be automatically tossed, as they’ve been played out). Wednesday’s audience suggested such tongue-torturers as “quasipalindromic,” “hydrochlorified” and “orchiectomy,” the latter offered by an Australian female felony prosecutor, and which means “removal of the testicles.”

Brady fielded and folded in these terms with finesse, proving in the heat of the beat that he also knew what they meant — he even offered a bonus definition for “polyorchid.”

Unfailingly charming, Brady is partnered for most of the improvs with Jonathan Mangum, fully the headliner’s equal in the arcane arts of improvisation. Relaxed and alert, seeming to share a symbiotic mind, this duo is ready for any possibility.

In one sketch, four volunteers may be called on to instantly embody stage props; in another, audience members supply sound effects. The inexpert and utterly unpredictable efforts of the endearingly stage-struck amateurs makes the bits all the funnier.

Standouts on Wednesday included a skit about two guys who are insanely competitive about their lawn mowers, played out as sci-fi, kung fu and Bollywood movies. Another sketch, in which Brady and his cohorts were suddenly called on to fast-forward, slow-motion and finally replay an entire skit in reverse was as astounding as any acrobatic stunt or magic trick.

The show climaxed with a round of “Celebrity Idol,” hosted by Mangum as an oleaginous Ryan Seacrest, challenging Brady to sing a series of absurdly titled songs in the style of various artists. Supported by his apparently telepathic three-person band and trio of backing vocalists, Brady excels at this kind of thing, creating an eerily exact Prince wincing and cooing through “Working in a Mental Institution.”

The coup de grace was a song called “Being an A— Makes Me Manly,” delivered in the clenched-everything manner of Creed. I hereby nominate it as the official anthem of Las Vegas — not only would I buy that record, I would wear the T-shirt.

About those aforementioned hot ladies: Brady and his bunch returned to the stage in full Beyonce mode: Sporting high ponytails, their business hastily tucked into off-the-shoulder unitards, stockings and heels, they snap into a blazing recreation of the diva’s iconic “Single Ladies” routine that was so funny exactly because it is so tight, so no-joke perfect.

That would seem to be pretty much un-followable as a finale. But just when you thought the show was over, Brady returned for a too-short set of singing and dancing that amounts to a bonus show.

Brady, whose first album, “A Long Time Coming,” earned a Grammy nomination last year, superimposed Sammy Davis Jr. on Stevie Wonder’s “All I Do” (with more than a hint of Michael Jackson’s precision pyrotechnics). And the real finale, the energizing “Back in the Day,” conjured a mid-’80s house party, with Brady and his boys bringing back such dance moves as the Reebok and the Roger Rabbit.

Refreshingly hip and atypically au courant, Brady’s “Making %@it Up” is that rare Vegas show that recognizes the existence of the current millennium and life outside the confines of the Strip. Hyperbolic words such as “hilarious” or “hysterical” aren’t necessary: Brady and his bunch are just solidly, consistently, memorably funny.