Friday, October 22, 2004 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOW REVIEW: Vinnie Favorito feels at home

The room that housed the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe is the perfect place for his `street level' comedy

Vinnie Favorito's comedy works best when he is playing off his audience at Binion's Horseshoe. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

Shows don't really have to match the room or hotel they play in, but it's fun when they do.

And it really helps when the room used to house the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe. Vinnie Favorito practices what he calls "street level" comedy, which makes him seem quite at home in a room that until very recently hosted the rounders and rocks of ultimate hold-'em.

A lesser matchup might have made it seem like the veteran club headliner was really pushing things to jump into a field already crowded with five comedy club formats, "event comedy" such as Beacher's Comedy Madhouse and sit-down headliners including Rita Rudner and George Wallace.

Do we need another comedy show? Probably not. Do we need one downtown? Maybe. Just maybe.

Most of the folks at Favorito's Saturday show looked like they didn't come from too far away, and most of them left looking like they were glad they came.

The second-floor room -- up the escalator, down the smoky hallway, past the flooded men's room -- has that old Vegas atmosphere you can't fake in places like the Palms and Hard Rock Hotel. Favorito worked the stage in a leather coat that would blend into a Martin Scorsese movie, making Italian-American jokes at his own expense, staking his claim to dish out the same for other ethnicities.

"I've got like four or five jokes. Then I shoot the (breeze)," the Boston native explained midway through the 45-minute set. He wasn't far from wrong. His scripted material is more ordinary than his work in the improv zone, playing serves from the audience.

When a guy says he works for Fed-Ex, Favorito asks, "How long did it take you to get here? Twenty-four hours?"

Another guy works for the Kelloggs cereal company. "You put the cereal in the box," Favorito, says, miming the motion.

The guy responds that he's in "distribution."

"So I was right."

Someone else works for "New York Transit," causing the comedian to respond, "Do you drive the bus or do you just do the graffiti?"

This all comes at a rapid-fire clip. And much like Howie Mandel -- another comic who creates the illusion of "winging it" -- Favorito remembers names and keeps coming back to people at the tables for tie-back jokes: "You like cereal?" he asks one lady. "I know a guy."

"I don't even feel like you're a crowd. I feel like I walked out on my front stoop and you were here," Favorito tells them. And this is what he does best, creating a feeling of interactivity that overshadows his stock material on Californians, TV remotes, Supercuts and Puerto Ricans with Jesus decals on their headlights.

Scripted comedy you can find all over town. If you want to find out who comes to Vegas and what they do for a living when they're not here, this is the place and Favorito is their guy.

Favorito will have an opening act that will change every couple of weeks. For the first stretch it was Michael Close, whom locals may know for his long run in the Monte Carlo lounge, where he offered a unique combination of close-up magic and jazz piano.

He tried playing the piano here, as people came in and found their seats. But the audience, unaccustomed to background music, thought the show had already started. So Close had to give that up and stick to telling jokes.

It's just that kind of place.