Performing Arts

GRAND PRAIRIE – You couldn't really fault fans of the popular TV show Everybody Loves Raymond for expecting comedy pair Ray Romano, who played the titular Ray Barone, and Brad Garrett, who played his dour brother Robert, to just re-create the show.

But fans would have been surprised, which is not to say disappointed, to find the duo on Thursday at Nokia Theatre, reaching back to their standup roots and avoiding (at least for the first 90 percent of their performance) the subject of Raymond entirely.

Or maybe they would have been disappointed. The simple fact is that as deeply as Raymond is ingrained into our pop-culture psyche, and as omnipresent in syndication, the evening was amusing at best.

Mr. Romano was much like his TV persona, kind of a whiny man-boy shifting uncomfortably in his shoes as he suffers the indignities and obligations of adult life.

He riffed pleasantly enough for a crowd of about 1,900: on child- raising, married sex and the vicissitudes of growing old. He asked audience members about their kids, their marriages and other domestic details.

All in all, it was sweet and a bit staid, lacking the bite of younger comics such as Louis C.K. or Greg Behrendt.

The real surprise was Mr. Garrett, who, unlike his sad-sack Raymond character, was a throwback to the old-school insult comedy of Don Rickles.

"Where's Robert?" he said, mimicking a woman. "Who is this loudmouthed [expletive]?"

If you only knew Mr. Garrett through his TV career, it might seem a valid question. He paced the stage, ladling out abuse on Mexicans, Arabs, Indians, rednecks and whomever else he spied. Some of it was funny; some of it merely crude.

Ultimately the evening was surprising, provocative and even amusing. But never really laugh-out-loud funny.

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