Heckled Nickman Keeps His Wit About Him

There are hecklers, and then there’s Rose Marie, who destroyed Bob Nickman’s show Wednesday at the Laff Stop in Newport Beach.

Hecklers are both the bane of stand-up comedy and part of the territory. Once most comics get past the open-mike level, they have developed an arsenal of verbal salvos to fire back at hecklers. They recognize that these folks generally want to match wits with the performer because they’ve had too little attention in their lives or too much to drink that night. Or both.

In turn, most hecklers quickly recognize that they’re ill equipped for a battle of wits and simply withdraw from the contest.

But not Rose Marie. (Sure, she told us her name and what she does for a living, and that she was with her fiance, and that she visits the Laff Stop regularly, and all sorts of other things inquiring minds didn’t want to know.)

She was so thoughtless, so intent on inserting herself into the proceedings that Nickman--an experienced professional and, on a normal night, an understated, clever, and very fine comic--simply could not get her to shut up. In fact, she somehow interpreted his attempts to do so as encouragement to become bolder, even more vocal.

(Actually, the Laff Stop has to be taken to task here. At just about any other comedy club, someone like Rose Marie would have been asked to quiet down--and finally asked to leave--instead of being allowed to ruin the night for everyone in the room.)

Indeed, she had already been sufficiently talkative and disruptive during the opening acts that one of Nickman’s first comments on stage was directed to Rose Marie and her fiance: “Doesn’t he talk to you? I don’t want to, to be honest.”

That earned him a temporary reprieve from her running commentary, enabling him to perform some of his act before his concentration and timing were thrown completely out of whack by her gab-a-thon.

In one of his early pieces, ironically, he addressed the difficulty of advancing his show business career in the severely competitive environs of Los Angeles: “I joined AA. I don’t even drink--I just needed the stage time.”

Playing off his appearance--diminutive, balding, bespectacled--Nickman sometimes comes across as a lobbyist for the little guy. He understands what it’s like to be the underdog, to be slightly out of step. He acknowledged the difficulty of being a man who cares little about sports and how that indifference can cast doubt on your manhood “unless you can account for your time with other activities that are equally masculine.”

For example, in response to a buddy’s invitation to attend the Rams game, he said: “The Rams? No, I can’t. I’ve got to go put a transmission in a stripper’s car.”

So far, so good. But soon, ol’ Rose Marie started chiming in more and more, with any marginally relevant thing that came to mind, from her relationship with her family to her long-term career plans.

At this point, Nickman was still trying to quell her comments with fairly mild barbs: “What are you drinking--a Corona? Nice to see someone breaking away from the crowd.”

As things got curiouser and curiouser, some of his more subtle material (“I started going out with this woman I met through a personal ad, but every time I picked up the newspaper, she thought I was going to cheat on her.”) got lost in the confusion and chatter. So he became less subtle: “It’s going to be terrible when your looks go, because then you’ll have nothing.”

Toward the end of the set, Rose Marie felt she was on such a roll that she actually said, “I’m stealing your show.”

Nickman told her, “You’re not stealing it,” and muttered an obscenity. “You’re so self-enamored that you’re going to be jealous of the people who envy you.”

By that time, the show had definitely entered the twilight zone, some hellish scene out of Fellini. Any modicum of restraint she might have reflected earlier was long gone; other members of the audience now felt free to chat with Nickman, and some were so clearly annoyed with Rose Marie that they began heckling her .

One guy yelled: “She should go to a plastic surgeon and have herself removed!”

Suggesting that he had somehow managed to keep his wits--and wit--about him throughout this ordeal, when he left the stage Nickman looked over to Rose Marie and whispered “Call me.”

It was probably the longest, strangest, most excruciating 50 minutes Nickman has spent in a comedy club. Same here.

Nickman continues at the Laff Stop through Sunday, sharing the stage tonight and Saturday with special guest Marty Cohen (probably best known from his days on “Solid Gold”), then returning to headliner status on Sunday. Rose Marie is not expected to return.

The Laff Stop is at 2122 S.E. Bristol St., Newport Beach. Show times: 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday; 8, 10 and 11:45 p.m. Saturday; 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $6-$10. Information: (714) 852-8762.