MASON SHOW STANDS UP TO BROADWAY

Jackie Mason’s solo show, “The World According to Me,” jumped from the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills to the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Broadway this week, and at least one man cheered.

Happily for Mason, he was the man from the New York Times, Dick Shepard.

“Mr. Mason is an essayist, a commentator, an observer of how people and society work,” Shepard wrote. “Maybe he is a verbal cartoonist. Maybe he’s a glass of tea. No matter, he is very funny and anyone attempting to read meaning into what he is saying should be condemned to a siege of heartburn without benefit of seltzer.”

Shepard acknowledged that Mason was merely delivering his nightclub act on Broadway--but who’s counting? “He is such a deft stand-up comic that he is no less funny when he sits down. . . . (His) show works because, unlike many other things that make it to Broadway, he has not succumbed to the temptation to be pretentious.”

Also charmed was the Associated Press’ Michael Kuchwara. “(Mason) is a superb raconteur and in this show he has time to spin out his tales. He always knew how to build a joke. Here it’s fun to watch him pile laugh on top of laugh as he climbs toward an even funnier payoff.”

Clive Barnes of the New York Post wasn’t so sure. “He could be in the Catskills, he should be in Las Vegas, but he happens to be on Broadway--and, surprisingly, he is not that bad. Not all that good, either.”

Howard Kissell of the Daily News was put off. “Why didn’t I laugh as much as the people around me? Maybe because of the self-satisfaction Mason demonstrates as soon as he opens his mouth. ‘It’s certainly a pleasure to see me in person’ was all too sincere.”

“The Front Page” is back on the theater pages in New York, with Jerry Zaks’ revival at Lincoln Center. All the critics liked it, some “against my better critical judgment” (Barnes). The New Yorker’s Brendan Gill pointed out that beneath the slam-bang dialogue, it really was a rattletrap plot. Michael Feingold pointed out that playwrights Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s cynicism about Chicago in the ‘20s had a frightening nihilistic tone, revealing “an abyss of moral ugliness.”

And both loved the show, which should tell you what mugs theater critics are. Feingold chastised reviewers who thought Richard Thomas was too baby-faced to play that ace police reporter, Hildy Johnson. “Watch his body English, and you’ll learn how good Thomas’ acting is.”

“Theater Is for All” is the title of a new report on the British theater, sponsored by the British Arts Council.

It finds that while government support for theater hasn’t changed much in real terms in a decade--last year’s grants were just over 26 million pounds (about $40 million in our money)--its allocation has. The country’s two big national theaters, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain, are getting a larger slice of the pie. Touring and small-scale theater projects are getting a much smaller slice. Regional theaters are getting about the same slice.

One of the report’s recommendations: Set up six “National Theaters” outside of London to tour the regions. This will cost money. A proposed source is a levy on the BBC and the other TV companies, “in recognition of all the talent and product they get from the theater.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK. Jonathan Silverman, 20, currently starred in “Broadway Bound” on Broadway and “Brighton Beach Memoirs” on the screen:

“Success--or whatever you want to call it--hasn’t affected me. I still have the same values, the same feelings and attitudes and the same Mazda RX-7 that I had when I was 16. I guess what’s important is to remain level-headed through this whole thing.”