Jeff Ross is about to get very personal. He also wants to make it clear that he hasn’t gone completely soft in his one-man written and performed Broadway show, Take a Banana for the Ride (Nederlander Theatre, through Sept. 28). First to get insulted are those in his immediate sight-lines in the front row: their fashion, bodies, and private lives are briskly impugned.

Ross is nicknamed “The Roastmaster General” for a reason—and the tension in this show, a self-patrolled tightrope, is watching the reigning king of all-chopping jabs and insults aimed at fellow celebrities spend most of 90 revealing a private life of anguish and tragedy.

In a sometimes beguiling and sharp, sometimes woolly and unfocused show directed by Stephen Kessler, these stories themselves come with lacerating jokes (l

See Full Page