Shelley Berman Finds a New Audience : Comedian Is a Hot Classroom Act

Apaying audience of eight sat in rapt attention as Shelley Berman performed on a recent weekday evening.

Three decades ago, when Berman was one of the hottest comedy acts in the country, the crowds that packed into a nightclub to see him perform might include the smart set, celebrities and even the President.

But on this evening, it appeared that most of those watching Berman, 65, had not been born when the comedian was at the height of his popularity. They were students in his USC graduate class in humor writing.

An audience more likely to remember his golden years will be present when he appears in a new show about Jewish humor, “Jokes, Kosher & Traif,” that makes its debut Saturday night at Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism on Mulholland Drive.

The show has proven so popular at the box office that two additional performances have been added to the three originally scheduled. Irwin Parnes, producer and author of the show, gives much of the credit for ticket sales to Berman’s name.

“When I went to the board at the university and suggested this show on Jewish humor for their performance series, I didn’t know if they would go for it,” said Parnes, who is a veteran of local show business, having presented everything from top-flight classical music performers to dancing animal acts during his more than 40-year career.

“All I had to do was mention that I had gotten Shelley Berman to agree to do it and that clinched it,” he said.

The students in Berman’s USC class do get to see him perform on occasion. The class this evening consisted mostly of his reading all the parts in scenes that the students had written and offering instant commentary.

“A man with polished nails is nothing but trouble,” proclaimed Berman, playing the part of a black man talking to his daughter about boyfriends. Berman laughed after he read the line and then switched back into his role of teacher.

“I love this father,” he said. “This is delicious dialogue, but what’s wrong here?”

One of the students gently suggested that the scene was getting talky.

“Talk is exactly the problem,” Berman said. “It’s going on too long just back and forth. Maybe they should argue.”

And with that, Berman almost exploded into an improvised argument between the father and daughter. At the end, the entire class was laughing and Berman patted the writer’s hand.

“You are very, very good,” he told her. “You just have to remember that any time you can find a good obstacle in someone’s way, you have to pursue it.

“That’s where you will find the comedy. You can’t avoid it. Comedy is the manifestation of conflict.”

There was a good deal of conflict in Berman’s professional life, and not much of it was particularly funny. He trained as an actor with Uta Hagen in New York, then at the famed Goodman Theater in Chicago; it was there that he fell in with an improvisational group, the Compass Players, which eventually became known as the original Second City troupe. While there, he developed his trademark bit of conversing over an imaginary telephone.

Eventually his telephone calls, in which the audience would hear only his side of the conversation, became all the rage. Fans loved his albums so much that they would memorize and recite them ad nauseam at parties.

In the late 1960s, however, his popularity began to wane. Berman blames it on a variety of reasons, including, he said, the press’s tendency to group him with other popular comedians.

“Years ago when I was one of the hottest comedians in the country, Lenny Bruce put out an album called ‘Sick Humor,’ ” Berman said, with the pauses getting longer and a hint of anger coming into his voice. “I opened up Time magazine one day and found out that I was a ‘sick comic.’ Mort Sahl was also a ‘sick comic.’ Nichols and May were ‘sick comics.’

“They had to put us in a convenient slot. They created a category, one I fought so hard to overcome, one which I think cost me my career. That is how hard I fought.”

Berman got a reputation as a fighter. Always an exacting performer, he railed against working conditions in many clubs and, because he was doing work that was close to theater, he was irked by heckling or any other disturbances, including eating, that are part of the nightclub experience.

“I got a reputation for causing trouble, maybe because I am passionate about things,” he said. “But I did not deserve the things that were said about me. I was never just a troublemaker.”

Berman fell into difficult times that included well-publicized financial woes. He shifted into doing more acting and, in recent years, has appeared in such shows as “La Cage aux Folles” in the Poconos, “I’m Not Rappaport” in Chicago and “Fiddler on the Roof” in numerous productions. He also does voice-overs on commercials. Although he occasionally does his one-man act in theaters and auditoriums, he has refused most offers to appear in nightclubs.

But when talking about “Jokes, Kosher & Traif” ( traif is a Yiddish word that means, among other things, non-kosher), in which he will appear with comedian Lotus Weinstock to read vintage jokes and anecdotes, he stresses that he does not really believe that there is humor that is specifically Jewish humor.

“I am a Jew who understands these jokes very well and I’m a good performer,” Berman said. “I’ve been asked to participate and I am happy to do so. I like the jokes and they are well written.

“But I don’t really think there is anything that is specifically Jewish humor.”

He believes that almost all jokes characterized as Jewish could just as easily be told about other nationalities if a few particulars are changed.

He made his points passionately, but then just as passionately said he does not mean to undercut the upcoming show.

“The jokes in it are marvelous and I think the Jewishness in them is very warming and a lot of fun,” he said. “So maybe I don’t know what Jewish humor is about, but what does that matter?”

It is clear that one place where everything absolutely matters in Berman’s work life is in the classroom. This is his third year teaching at USC. “There is no money in it, but I enjoy it very much, and I am good at it. They keep asking me back.”

One of the scenes he read that evening was about a woman who cannot bear to be touched by strangers. By mistake, she attends a service in a church where hugs are a part of almost every encounter.

Berman read the paper almost nonstop, with interruptions only for laughter. He obviously relished this moving and hilarious tale in which the humor all came out of the situation.

When he was done, he looked at the student with pride.

“Absolutely marvelous,” he said. “You just move so gently from beat to beat and you don’t miss any opportunities. It comes from the mind and the heart. It’s just delicious comedy.”

Berman paused and looked around at the other students.

“And to think it was all my idea.”

That last line was a joke, but one that came out of the situation of a master storyteller recognizing the brilliance of one of his students. It got the biggest laugh of the night.

“Jokes, Kosher & Traif” will be at Gindi Auditorium of the University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Drive. Evening performances are Saturday through Tuesday, with a matinee Sunday. For information, call (213) 476-9777 or (213) 472-6140.