Hat enthusiast and comedic virtuoso Damon Wayans rolls into town for a few evenings of peerless humor and spot-on satire this week, fresh from nearly a decade of television successes, from My Wife and Kids to his Showtime sketch-comedy baby The Underground. Many remember his unforgettable early-'90s In Living Color characters like Blaine Edwards (one half of the flamboyant gay film critic duo in Men on …), Homey D. Clown (“Homey don’t play dat”), and Oswald Bates, erudite convict. Big-screen turns as a con man intent on cleaning up his act in Mo’ Money, a zealous discharged military man in Major Payne, and a Harvard-educated network employee who pitches an accidentally successful televised minstrel show in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled cemented his reputation as a formidable leading man in smart comedies. Wayans’ stand-up makes the most of his genius for impressions — an extended movie pitch from a pimp wanting to break into show business comes to mind. But he’s also good for trenchant social observations: “Her breath smelled like hot garbage,” he says during a rant on noxious hygiene.
Jan. 7-10, 8 & 10:15 p.m., 2010
