POP REVIEW : WAITS SHOWS HIS PERSONA AT BEVERLY

There’s a schizophrenic quality to Tom Waits that defines both his artistry and his obscurity.

It may sound strange to describe as obscure someone who is so critically acclaimed and can sell out three shows at the 1,400-seat Beverly Theatre. Yet, Waits is an artist--much like Randy Newman before “Short People”--whose talent deserves far more than the cult following it now attracts.

A problem is that Waits--an immensely gifted writer and wonderfully original singer--seems as interested in being a character as writing about one. This fascination with role may be limiting his range on stage.

Anyone seeing him for the first time Saturday night at the Beverly would probably have been so absorbed in Waits’ offbeat persona that it would take a while to even begin focusing on what he was saying in his richly detailed songs.

Wearing a suit so rumpled that it would require two passes through the cleaners to get it back in shape, Waits attacked songs with the punk fury of Johnny Rotten, stomping the stage and waving his arms in the air like a supercharged Elmer Gantry. He also machine-gunned the words in a voice so gravelly that he must make his oatmeal out of cement mix.

Waits added to the color by twisting his body into odd, orangutan-like positions and prowling the stage, sometimes flapping his arms like a giant crow. Between songs, he kept the audience amused with wry asides and plenty of tall tales about the people in his songs, including a pal whose New Year’s Eve fall from a 12-story window was broken by the confetti in his hair.

This exaggeration is part of Waits’ game plan and charm. By introducing us to larger-than-life figures, he can also treat his primary themes--losers with big dreams, and dreamers with unlikely victories--on a large, ambitious scale. We accept in his songs what would be dismissed in lesser hands as melodrama because his whole premise is so aggressively theatrical. (When Waits sat down at the organ, he hit one key and smoke rose, another key and bubbles poured forth. Everything is an adventure in his world.)

Waits’ stories were given added punch and flavor Saturday by an exquisite six-piece band, highlighted by Marc Ribot, who played guitar with frequent show-stopping power and subtlety.

Although often invigorating, the relentless drive of the show and the bravado of the material eventually seemed a bit one-dimensional and in-crowd. That’s a shame, because much of Waits’ music is warm and universal. Many of his best and most accessible songs--from the early “San Diego Serenade” through more recent numbers like “Broken Bicycles” and “Time”--touch on an underdog romanticism that is echoed in his own image about the “magic of the melancholy tear in your eye.”

Whether he feels that these songs are unsuited to this band or that they don’t fit with his performance character, Waits seemed comfortable with this material only during the encore. Sitting at the piano without the band, he opened with “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis,” a poignant cry for help from someone who has never been able to rely on kindness. In that number and the equally disarming “Tom Traubert’s Blues,” Waits showed he is no less interesting when he is gentle. He simply invites more people to the party, making what was already one of the year’s standout concerts even more involving.