Suddenly, Dave Chappelle, the great disappearing man of comedy, is everywhere.

He’s cracking jokes on late-night television with David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon, giving a quotation to GQ magazine and even making an appearance on “Today.” His welcome return is surely being made at the expense of some mystique. Once you chat with Matt Lauer while holding a handmade sign plugging your new shows, your days as a reclusive rebel are over. That shift is reflected in his comedy.

His performance Wednesday night at Radio City Music Hall, the first of a much-ballyhooed 10-show engagement, seemed to make an effort to move past his exit from his hit show on Comedy Central in 2005. I saw him perform four times last year, but this was a more conventional, less introspective set.

It was often hilarious — as you would expect from one of the greatest comedians of his generation — and a year of steady performing has tightened his jokes and polished his act, but maybe too much so. He’s streamlined or discarded some of his ambling, poetic yarns, stopped indulging in elaborate riffs and turned epic tales into more traditional, joke-dense set pieces. He still has moments of unexpectedly explosive line readings, but not as many as before. He’s been on tour a long time, and it feels that way.

As beautiful as it may be, Radio City Music Hall is a cavernous room that swallows up stand-up comedy. It’s way too large to get the charged atmosphere and acoustics of the best comedy clubs, and it’s particularly ill suited to Mr. Chappelle. Never a kinetic performer, Mr. Chappelle, who has always had an intimate, even offhand style, has become even more static and low energy.