‘Freshly Squeezed,’ stale taste

The title of Jackie Mason’s latest show, “Jackie Mason Freshly Squeezed,” does not mean that his comedy has changed in any significant way.

Now at the Wilshire Theatre, Mason still trots out generalizations about Jews and gentiles, men and women, marrieds and singles, doctors and the rest of us. His thoughts are not phrased in exactly the same way as his previous ruminations on these subjects -- his ad boasts of “100% new material” -- but hardly anything in the show feels new.

Except the absence of political material, that is. He mentioned no politicians Wednesday -- despite a press release for the show that promised “politics, politics and more politics.”

The closest Mason came to politics was a sensibly reasoned and surprisingly earnest bit in which he challenged critics of same-sex marriage to demonstrate how it would threaten conventional marriages. It helped compensate for a tiresome running gag in which he addressed and labeled individuals in the first few rows as homosexuals.

Although Mason doesn’t draw on personal anecdotes as often as most comics, he referred glancingly to his own participation in the Atkins diet and in vacations at spas -- before proceeding to lampoon these subjects mercilessly.

Despite the jokes, however, his regimen appears to have worked -- he looked relatively trim and fit and moved easily around the stage. When he needed to illustrate physical discomfort -- which he did frequently, given his material -- he had no problem assuming his standard posture of pain.

Some of his jokes indicated a remarkable ignorance of what he was talking about. He went on about Mormons as polygamists, even though the main Mormon church turned against polygamy more than a century ago -- and later, he mimicked a resident of Utah by employing a Southern drawl. Setting up a riff about the Grand Canyon, he couldn’t remember its name until audience members shouted it -- and then the lame payoff was that Jews think it’s just a hole in the ground “because there’s nothing there.”

His hoariest material was a long rap about the presumed advantages of hookers over wives. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that he also defended Howard Stern, but it then seemed odd that he expressed disapproval of such play titles as “The Vagina Monologues” and “Urinetown.”

Mason discussed the destructiveness of religious wars and questioned why most people automatically pursue the religion of their parents, despite other disagreements with the previous generation. But then he worried out loud over whether this material might be too offensive for Broadway.

Not that he cared about the opinion of L.A. audiences or critics -- “I’m leaving town; it’s your problem” if we don’t like him, he said. He expressed great anxiety, however, over whether the New York Times critic will like him when he opens this show on Broadway next year. In fact, his appearance here felt like a workshop instead of a polished show -- and in the cavernous Wilshire, it lacked the hothouse intensity of his appearances last century at the smaller Canon Theatre.

*

‘Jackie Mason Freshly Squeezed’

Where: Wilshire Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: 8 p.m. today and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday

Ends: Sunday

Price: $35 to $100

Contact: (213) 365-3500 or (714) 740-7878, www.BroadwayLA.org

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Also

Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 3rd and B streets, San Diego

When: 7 p.m. Monday

Price: $29.50 to $59.50

Contact: (619) 570-1100, www.broadwaysd.com