Jenifer Lewis Builds a Sharp Show Around Sept. 11, of All Things

If Monday is the dreariest day of your week, and if Sept. 11 still has you down, Jenifer Lewis is offering an irreverent pick-me-up, “Now What?,” Mondays at the Tiffany Theater.

The mention of Sept. 11 in a description of Lewis’ latest show may sound incongruous. But Lewis manages to create stylish entertainment out of her reactions to what happened that day.

Or at least her supposed reactions. In the opening number, in which she obscures her glamour with a yellow bathrobe, she claims that the events of Sept. 11 caused her to seek comfort in food, which made her balloon in size (cue the song “Fat as I Am”). But then she sheds the robe, revealing through her casual black attire that the weight problem was just a joke.

She presses on with Sept. 11 references, however, and they reach their high point in a wickedly funny number in which she imagines herself playing the mother of Osama bin Laden in a “Gypsy”-like musical. Tasteless? Perhaps. Sidesplitting? Definitely. Lewis co-wrote this material, and the rest of her patter, with Mark Alton Brown.

Later, Lewis recalls a childhood friend who purportedly called her on Sept. 11 with the news that a cousin who worked at a Boston airport was being blamed for the terrorists’ ability to penetrate security. Lewis turns this into a biting caricature of her friend.

Hey, no one said Lewis was tactful, and a few fellow African American women celebrities are her juiciest targets. The quintessence of this phenomenon is a hilarious encore, the title of which can’t be published in this newspaper for reasons of taste.

*

Lewis’ wit is frequently aimed at herself as well. “I’ve done some hateful things, but it was only to further my career,” she says with mock innocence. Her story of trying to climb Mt. Fuji is rife with comic self-deprecation. From her hit show of almost a decade ago, “The Diva Is Dismissed,” she repeats a medley of brief poses from her years on Broadway that sends up herself as well as musical theater cliches.

Lewis does get serious a few times during the evening. She repeats her musical tribute to her grandmother from “The Diva Is Dismissed,” and she sings a mellow rendition of Coleman Hawkins’ “Be Grateful” with her stellar accompanist, Grammy-winning Mervyn Warren. “I Know Where I’ve Been,” by the show’s musical consultant, Marc Shaiman, and technical supervisor, Scott Wittman, can be interpreted as a more sobering reaction to Sept. 11.

The self-absorption that she mocks is applied too thickly in film clips from her acting roles (among others, she was in “What’s Love Got to Do With It?,” “The Preacher’s Wife” and the current Lifetime series “Strong Medicine”). The initial clips are good for a few laughs, but her final encore--in which she screens clips from her 2001 TV movie, “Jackie’s Back”--is shamelessly promotional, related to the imminent release of the DVD. It’s hardly a grand finale, and imparts a slightly sour taste to our exit from what is otherwise a sharply uncompromising evening of cabaret.

*

“Now What?,” Tiffany Theater, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Mondays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 25. $35. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.