By Peter Lindblad
(Shot for Hachette Publishing
“Who Do I Think I Am?”)
A queen knows how to make an entrance. Anjelah Johnson-Reyes is comic royalty, and she doesn’t need a diamond tiara to prove it.
After being introduced by her opener, Madison’s own Rahn Hortman, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes – dressed down and looking comfortable in her own skin – came onstage doing a little dance, intent on making a little comedic love to an almost packed house at Madison’s Barrymore Theatre on May 6.
She made herself right at home.
Even at age 40, having done standup since she was 24, Johnson-Reyes is as youthful and relevant as comics half her age, that spirited, carefree, Generation Z attitude and relatability injecting her mostly clean comedy with an utterly infectious vitality.
Once upon a time, Johnson-Reyes was an NFL cheerleader, who later parlayed her improv training into a brief, but memorable, run on “MADtv,” where she inhabited funny characters with an attitude, like My Linh/Tammy, a Vietnamese nail salon employee, and the ill-mannered, ill-tempered fast-food worker Bon Qui Qui that she created.
Since then, there’ve been sightings in movies “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” and “Our Family Wedding,” as well as her 2009 one-hour Comedy Central special “Anjelah Johnson: That’s How We Do It.” Netflix presented her 2015 special “Anjelah Johnson: Not Fancy,” and she’s built a cult following with her funny and reflective memoir “Who Do I Think I Am? Stories of Chola Wishes and Caviar Dreams.”
Robin Leach be damned, Johnson-Reyes – approachable and unaffected, and not shy about expressing her Christian faith – has lived them, her comedy informed by her Mexican and Native American heritage. There’s a down-to-earth quality about Johnson-Reyes that undeniable, as she jokes about getting caught red-handed going back for grocery store samples and being both seduced and repulsed by impulse purchase items at T.J. Maxx. Her animated recreation of moving through the retailer’s famed zig-zag line to the cash register had the Barrymore crowd howling. It was a great bit of physical comedy.
At the same time, the horror of tornado warnings and the size of the bugs in her new home of Nashville, where the L.A. girl moved with her husband, draws a similar reaction, providing moments of fish-out-of-water funny stuff. Their marriage and unusual home life is full of hilarious ups and downs, which she confesses with a sweet, self-deprecating openness that’s real and comes off like therapy. Her sweet, yet salty, sarcasm reveals a defiance that’s unexpected.
A seasoned pro, Johnson-Reyes knows how to string together a mix of sly – if not very edgy – observational humor and subtle satire with lively storytelling, her hopscotching agility generating momentum, keeping an assembly line of laughs going. A little bit of crowd work interrupts her relentless pacing, but it never stops her easy flow, and while it’s obviously all hard work, she makes it look effortless.
Don’t sleep on the easygoing and underrated Hortman, Johnson-Reyes’ touring sidekick for some time now. Good-naturedly focusing on a tough upbringing, fatherhood and negotiating husband-and-wife minefields, he’s brilliant at making audiences comfortable and connecting with them, wringing consistent laughter from hard-luck stories that could make a weaker man bitter. There’s a bit where Hortman talks of the embarrassment and fear of going to jail, and how he was moved by the Lord to reach out to the biggest, scariest prisoner there. It worked out in the most unlikely way possible. So does Hortman’s inspirational, everyman comedy. He’s a breath of fresh air and a comic to root for.