The Drew Carey performance at Carolina Theater in Durham, NC on Jan. 11 was comfortable.
That might be a surprising description since the language was so raw - but it was not really all that offensive. It was kinda threaded into every joke. It was not so shocking as it seemed to be part of the way this guy talks when he's just being himself. If it had not been there the whole time, it would have been more of a put-off. By the show's end, it was expected - comfortable.
He was comfortable looking in tennis shoes and blue jeans with a button jean shirt, easy-going, laid back and seemed to be enjoying himself.
He was not rushed or overly concerned with presentation - just comfortable.
The show was short. I could have enjoyed 20 or even 30 more minutes.
Still, it was a time-enough night out for everyone, and he appreciated that aspect of it - a break for him from being a bit squeaky clean as the host of "The Price Is Right" and an evening of what he appreciatively called "theater" for the nearly sold-out crowd.
There were a lot of sex jokes. They were comfortably funny. Again, an odd way to describe a sex joke, but he pulled it off.
You came out of the show entertained, no more or less of a fan - just comfortable. He was not hilarious, yet I laughed the whole time. You didn't really get star struck, but it was cool to think, "Heh, that's Drew Carey - not a bad guy at all!"
Carey is a realistic, multi-talented, incredibly successful entertainer - and he seems to know that - out there just making his way along the best he can with the rest of us to make good sense of it all - trying to find a comfort zone in a crazy world.
Glad for him and for us that he found some of that easy-chair feel in Durham.