BRIGHT AND BLUESY BLACK HUMOR

Glenn Brown stood on stage at the Regency West Ballroom and surveyed the crowd.

“I was on welfare and stayed home and watched game shows,” he said. “I wondered, ‘What if they made game shows for people on the county?’ Call it ‘The County Game Show.’ ”

In a falsetto voice, he said, “ ‘My name is Wanda Robinson and I’ve been a welfare recipient for eight years. My six kids are in the front row.’ She’s up against Hector Gonzalez, whose family takes up the 12 back rows. ‘I would’ve brought them all, but I only drive a Toyota.’ ” Wanda’s winning prize includes a year’s supply of food stamps and “a trip to Pacoima, where you can ride the bus and stay at the rock house of your choice.”

The crowd of 300 erupted in laughter. Welfare. Unemployment. Co-existing with other ethnic minorities. The battle of the sexes. The bus. Rock houses. These and other themes flow steadily off the stage, where the Comedy Act Theatre holds forth weekly to turn-away crowds.

For energy, spirited atmosphere and the keen element of chance that anyone--including visiting celebrities as well as the comedians themselves--can be picked on at any time, Comedy Act is the hottest club in Los Angeles.

The theater, such as it is, was conceived by impresario Michael Williams as a place to give comedians “in the community” work; the comedy lineup that takes the stage Thursday and Friday nights includes fumbling amateurs as well as seasoned pros.

(Billy Wallace, a comedian in his 50s, gets a perverse laugh from his confession that he left stand-up comedy because “I was too old and unfunny,” then gets a real laugh with, “You only get one thing without money, and that’s sick. I read a book about how to be happy without money and that cost me $17.”)

The Regency West really is a ballroom, which means the acoustics are muddy in spots, the spartan stage space is cramped and the small service bar in the back is overworked.

What’s special about the room is that it’s a black club, run by blacks for blacks. There’s no specific dress code, but by tacit agreement the crowd, mostly young singles, dresses up with a stylishness just this side of formality. It’s a place to be seen in, and you want to look good if the spotlight catches you--or you have the misfortune of catching emcee Robin Harris’ sharp eye and merciless tongue. (To the balding man wending his way to the restroom: “Hey! You with the hole in yo’ natural!”)

Humor has always been a staple in the black survival kit. But it’s the sense of shared experience that gives the room its rough-and-tumble familial charge. Like people who are close, performers and audience feel free to be critical of each other. They’re also emotionally tuned in to each other--an ideal environment for comedy. ( “We built this city,” announces T. P. Hurd, “black people. You’d build it, too, if someone were whippin’ yo’.”)

Anger and pain aren’t far from the surface of many if not most of these acts, but humor is the imperative here. Its references may be as current as the rise of a pop celeb or a new movie (“The Color Purple” earned a frequent going-over after it came out), but a lot of the spirit evokes the deeper heartiness of the blues.

Williams’ impeccably dressed figure--he could pass for a bank manager--can usually be seen at the door or checking the house. But it’s Harris who gives the evening its edge. He has a heavy, barking, Sonny Liston voice; he comes on like a mean-spirited foreman who drinks on the job (which Harris does--as the evening wears on, his eyes grow rheumy and he gazes over the room balefully). To a man in a white jump suit: “Hey! You a bus mechanic? They be bustin’ ‘em up all over. Well, least you got a job.” No woman is exempt from comment: “I like you, baby, ‘cuz you look like you’re employed.”

Nor are other comedians exempt, unless they’re so bad that they sink beneath Harris’ comment, in which case he lets the indifferent murmur of the audience stand as judgment, as happened recently on a mostly female bill where several comediennes either lacked material or made the mistake of playing formula club routines that didn’t fit this audience. Otherwise, a waiting comedian will hear Harris’ “And now, back from his tour of El Segundo and Compton, and now appearing at the Watts Holiday Inn. . . .”

Eddie Murphy has shown up on occasion. And regulars include lesser-knowns such as Sinbad, Michael Colyar, Don Reed, Robert Townsend and a brilliant performance duo called Straight Up, a combination of street-dancers, mimes, rap artists and comedians who have real social bite. (A comparison between black and white machismo, a day at the unemployment office and a routine about two white guys, Bill and Bob, meeting are among their bits: “How the hell are ya?” “Pretty damn good. Pretty damn good.”) They deserve to be seen on their own.

The club has just celebrated its first anniversary. Williams, 33, was an amateur photographer whose ambition had no focus until he joined the Quincy Jones Workshop where “I realized that it was in working behind the scenes that I could express my commitment. I volunteered for all sorts of things--fund-raising organizations like the Brotherhood Crusade, the United Negro College Fund. I was on Mayor Bradley’s reelection committee.

“But I wanted to do something for myself and the community at the same time. I like comedy, and I remember going to the Comedy Store in Hollywood and seeing that there were no blacks and that most of the white comedians were poor. I decided to open a club for black comedians. I put an ad in a trade paper; 10 people responded. ‘There has to be more than this,’ I thought. I started asking around. I told the comedians I had no money, but I’d support them any other way I could.

“I discovered there was a lot of resistance in the community. It was like saying you didn’t have a right to laugh like someone else. I passed out flyers. We opened with 17 comedians. Harris was my emcee--he was the key. Nearly half the people who came had never been to a comedy club. Now we have season seat holders. Some like to sit near the front and slide money to Robin so he’ll say things about their friends. Anybody is fair game. When Magic Johnson (of the Los Angeles Lakers) and Warren Moon (of the Houston Oilers) came in, Robin said, ‘I want you folks to meet some important people: First and Second Interstate Bank.’ ”

Several of the Lakers regularly show up to unwind after home games. After the Western Division Championship series, when the Lakers were eliminated by the Houston Rockets, a disconsolate Johnson showed up at the club’s door. “I’ll tell Robin not to get on your case tonight,” Williams said. “No, let him do whatever he wants,” replied Johnson. “I came here because I need a good laugh.”