Word: mason
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...JACKIE MASON: MUCH ADO ABOUT EVERYTHING...
...Gentiles are allowed in the building?" asks Jackie Mason as he scans the audience to start his new one-man show, Much Ado About Everything. Indeed, it's a wonder that they are let in the building--Mason realizes his audience is virtually 100 percent Jewish and tailors his comedy appropriately. Sure, he occasionally delivers the universally appealing punch line, but even those seem unintentional--Mason knows his audience and boldly refuses to make his comedy broadly palatable. A gutsy approach but one that pays off in spades...
...Mason has, of course, had a long and illustrious career. In addition to performing for Queen Elizabeth II, being honored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and receiving an honorary degree from Oxford University, he has taken his one-man show to Broadway five different times. He has received all the awards a comedian could possibly dream of--Tonys, Grammys, Emmys...
Obviously, Jackie Mason has nothing to prove anymore. Recently, he's been letting his mouth motor along completely unrestrained: "Clinton would just as easily kill as Hitler would. He has no conscience," he said in a recent interview without explaining himself. As a result, the press has labelled him an "equal opportunity offender," a title he doesn't seem to mind. In Much Ado About Everything, he doesn't give a hoot about political correctness or being temporarily offensive, as long as it produces the all-important laugh...
...addition of the Mason Building, part of the larger music complex that includes Paine Hall, motivated Merritt to again become chair of the department...