COMEDY REVIEW : On the Offensive in Battle of the Sexes

Like all comics, Bobby Slayton aims to make ‘em laugh. But if he can also drive the wedge between the sexes in just a little deeper, then he really counts the evening a success.

“If I can make 95% of the people laugh and break up one couple, I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” Slayton said Tuesday from the stage of the Brea Improv, where he performs through Sunday. He moves to the Irvine Improv next week.

Wearing the moniker “pit bull of comedy” with pride, Slayton attacks his subjects with a go-for-the-jugular vehemence and tenacity that can be downright awe-inspiring. Shock comics come and go, but most swing a dull ax; Slayton moves in for the kill with pinpoint precision and the rat-a-tat-tat relentlessness of an AK-47.

Slayton has been called an equal-opportunity offender, but his set Tuesday played down the racial and ethnic bits in favor of extended musings on the relationship between women and men. If women came under heavy fire, men came away with heavy casualties too; in Slayton’s view of the war between the sexes, there are no prisoners.

His wife, he said, was terrified by the crazed-baby-sitter movie “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” but he didn’t see the problem. His response, if Rebecca DeMornay came to the door and wanted to make love to him, kill his wife and take care of the children? “You’ll do all that for $6 an hour?”

Slayton turned to the audience to make some of his points, but this wasn’t the sort of friendly interaction that some comics strive for. When he asked one couple how long they had been married, Slayton interpreted the husband’s response this way: “Seventeen years. . . . If I had killed her on our wedding night, I’d be getting out right about now.”

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Some of the ground was already pretty well worked by stand-ups: Women take a long time to get ready to go out. They ask the men to comment on the outfit. They get upset when they don’t hear the answer they want, saying they’re “only doing it for you.” Slayton’s way of freshening such tattered stereotypes is to turn down the inhibition level and turn up the vitriol: “You want to do something for me? Make me a sandwich. Get the car washed.”

On stage, Slayton claims he’s only voicing the things guys really want to say, and maybe that’s true in some cases. But the real beauty of Slayton’s act--if “beauty” can be used in this context--is that he has the skill to make audiences laugh at things they don’t necessarily want to laugh at.

The involuntary laughs force thinking audiences to examine their response: Is that the way I really think? Is that what my partner is secretly thinking? Slayton puts just enough truth into his wildly exaggerated stereotypes to force the issue.

Slayton sometimes digresses, a fact he readily admits (“For the blonde over there, that means I got off track”). But his manic New York rasp and high joke quotient keeps the interest level from flagging.

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Does Slayton really mean what he says? One offhand comment seemed to indicate that it’s at least partly an act. “I’ve been saying this stuff for so long, I’m starting to believe it,” he said near the end of the hourlong set, laughing and shaking his head.

If the sentiments are sometimes suspect, Slayton’s delight in tweaking his audience’s sense of propriety appears obvious and genuine: “By laughing at this kind of (stuff), you’re only encouraging me. This is your fault as much as mine.”

* Bobby Slayton and Rocky LaPorte perform at the Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St., through Sunday. Show times: 8:30 p.m. today, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 8 p.m. Sunday. $8-$12. (714) 529-7878. Slayton plays the Irvine Improv Aug. 17 to 22.