The youngest of a comedy dynasty will be in Bloomington next week. On Sept. 20, Marlon Wayans brings his new Wild Child tour to Grossinger Motors Arena for a rare comedy act in the hockey stadium.
Wild Child comes on the heels of Good Grief, an Amazon Prime comedy special filmed at the Apollo Theater. He ended Good Grief in Harlem because it's where he grew up, telling jokes as a way to process the death of his parents and emerge from the deep depression it caused.
In one setup, Wayans quoted his mother.
"You learn to laugh in your worst moments and you're gonna smile the rest of your days," he said.
He's smiling now.
"I'm better," he said in a phone interview for WGLT's Sound Ideas. "I think that helped me -- the journey of talking about them. Now they're with me."
An extended bit details memories of Christmas in the Wayans home as the youngest of 10 kids. Wayans' father was a Latter Day Saint who didn't celebrate Christmas and would hunker down in the bedroom as his wife decked the halls.
"My father knew we needed God. But my mother knew we needed love," Wayans said in Good Grief.
He goes on to describe his parents' final moments, somehow finding a way to make it hilarious.
"It takes a lot of heart to be funny," he said. "To do a drama is easy for me. All I gotta do is allow myself to feel and be present. Comedy is this thing that hurts you, and you go, 'What's funny about this?'"
Wayans' career in comedy began as a teenager, working in television and film -- often with his siblings. Keenan Ivory Wayans' groundbreaking sketch show, In Living Color, premiered in 1990 with then up-and-coming comedic A-listers Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx, plus Marlon, Damon, Shawn and Kim Wayans. Marlon and Shawn got a show of their own with The Wayans Bros., a subversive melodramatic sitcom that was unceremoniously cancelled in 1999 after five seasons.
Perhaps best known for comedic films like White Chicks and Scary Movie 1 and 2, Wayans' nearly four-decade career has been peppered with dramatic roles in Requiem for a Dream and as Michael Jordan's coach George Raveling in the 2023 biopic Air. He wrapped production in a starring role in a psychological horror produced by Jordan Peele called Him, centering on a young athlete who trains with a retiring star played by Wayans. He's back on television, too, with a recurring guest role on Bel-Air as Will's father Lou.
But Wayans wasn't doing stand-up regularly until 2018, when his first comedy special, Woke-ish, came out. Chris Rock heckled him during a stand-up set when he was 19 years old and he quit -- at least that what Wayans' said in his 2021 special, God Loves Me.
"Everything I said is 150% true," he said. "God made me take that break. It's great being back on my horse and really learning how to ride."
Well-versed in the art of the fart, Wayans said his comedy has matured. To be clear, he hasn't left behind the squirmy discomfort gross descriptions of human biology can add to a bit.
"Now, I can actually get the girl and save the day, not fart on the girl and blow myself up," he said. "These are my best years. I've been building toward something. I didn't know what. Now I see my skill set and I see it all coming together."