The cringing middle-aged couple resolutely kept their heads down as they stealthily tried to make their escape up the center aisle of the Charlottesville Performing Arts Center. The three young boys' burning faces were almost visible in the darkened auditorium as their parents' grasping arms propelled them awkwardly to the safety of the lobby.
Behind them, the jeers were already being aimed at their fleeing backs.
"Oh no, can't let the kids hear that," said the comedian onstage, 20 minutes into a show that already had made many listeners weak with laughter - and sent a few recoiling toward the exits.
Live from Charlottesville, it's Friday night!
Tracy Morgan, in his sixth season as a cast member of the ever-popular "Saturday Night Live" was in town to headline the University Programs Council-sponsored "Up All Night" comedy event Friday night. His in-person, stand-up routine, a far cry from the innocuous lines he delivers on "SNL," was shock comedy at its most graphic.
His name attracted an almost sold-out crowd to the CPAC, including the family that left mid-show. But there had been whispers about their presence even before the show's start from the ubiquitous blue-shirted UPC ushers.
And they weren't the only suspiciously young-looking audience members. In fact, small groups of preteens dotted the landscape of faces, giggling embarrassingly at the more shocking subject matter.
Alice MacDonald, a 16-year-old Charlottesville High School junior, and three friends described the show as "awesome." MacDonald won tickets to the show on the local hit-music station 101.9 FM and brought along her enthusiastic friends, including 17- year-old Sheri Trice.
Trice, barely able to contain herself, changed seats two times during the show to get closer to the stage. She wasn't offended by Morgan's bluntness.
"Everyday at school I hear worse," she said.
Explaining his own personal philosophy after the show, Morgan said he doesn't feel that his message is too "adult" for young people.
"I like to be open with my own kids," Morgan said, reclining in a chair off-stage. "I let them listen to whatever I'm listening to. It's about reality. They need to be ready for the real world."
Morgan himself grew up in a very real world. The Bronx was home to Morgan and his three brothers and one sister. Morgan said his oldest brother became a father figure to the family when Morgan's father, James, left the household.
"My older brother Jim raised us when Daddy left," Morgan said. "Jim was Daddy."
And Morgan's mother, Elise, often was occupied taking care of his older brother, who has multiple sclerosis.
"My mom had to really pay him all the attention," said Morgan, who was the middle child. "Being the middle child you get all emotional."
But the struggle to be recognized in a large, distracted family prompted Morgan to cultivate his comedic wit.
"I felt neglected," he said. "I think that's the reason I love entertaining and all of that, because you yearn for attention."
That youngster's quest for attention has resulted in the birth of a talented comedian whose material isn't stale routine, but spur of the moment inspiration.
When he entered the stage wearing light blue jeans and a gray sweater that bore the tell-tale creases of new clothes, Morgan appeared a tad bit shorter than he does on television. His self-confidence more than makes up for that, though, as he starts out with a few Virginia cracks.
"Cows and grass," he said, is all he expected to find in Virginia. As his plane was landing, he said he even wondered for whom he was possibly going to perform a comedy show.
But Virginia jokes aside, Morgan's message was about healthy communication and getting at the truth - no matter how shocking that truth is to hear.
He spoke, sometimes in extremely explicit words, about women and orgasms, men and their expectations of women they've based on pornography, the dullness of marriage after 13 years and the importance of talking and communication above all other things.
Morgan's explicitness undoubtedly offended some listeners, especially when he started making fun of handicapped people. And Morgan knows it.
"It was tragic for me to talk about disabled people onstage, but you all laugh," he said. "I can make fun of crippled people - my brother's one. When we argue, I say, 'You crippled motherf****r,' and he say, 'You unfunny motherf****r.'"
Third-year Engineering student Mike Kaplan was one of the audience members who thought the show was too risque. Kaplan bought tickets to the show based on Morgan's well-known name, but after the show he said Morgan had "crossed the line" with his subject matter.
Yet for Morgan, the subject matter of his shows reflects true-to-life grit, and despite his star status, he remains firmly grounded in a no-frills world.
He's no diva, content to talk in a tiny, crowded room with cinderblock walls painted a disturbing sea foam green. The food backstage hardly is gourmet - Harris Teeter brand pretzels and a fruit salad - but Morgan graciously accepts his surroundings, offering water and soda to anyone in the room.
He explains how "Saturday Night Live" has affected his career and broadened his horizons past his previous television experiences on "Uptown Comedy Club" and as the reoccurring character "Hustleman" on "Martin."
"'Saturday Night Live' had a tremendous impact on my career because it exposed white people to me," Morgan said. "Before I got on 'Saturday Night Live' I would do shows and it would be predominantly black and Latino - you know, my community. It exposed me to another community, another culture. Now when I look out into the audience, it's like 65 percent white."
In fact, a more diverse audience was one of the reasons that Morgan decided to be fully involved with the show.
"I never want to isolate no part of my audience," he said. "I want everyone to enjoy me."
In his show, Morgan touched on everything from growing up in the projects, to marriage, to Mike Tyson. He also alluded to current events, commenting on airport security and racial profiling in the wake of Sept. 11.
To Morgan, using Sept. 11 as comic material is perfectly natural.
"The same things that make you laugh make you cry," he said. "We have to laugh. We can't keep just grieving and moaning."
Morgan said he sees the intertwining of tragedy and comedy as integral to his comedic sense, but more importantly, to the world at large.
"Without tragedy you can't have comedy," he said. "Without comedy you can't have tragedy"
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