A reason that Mr. Chappelle has not lost a step is that he’s nowhere near as reclusive as he seems. He just performs only on his terms: in small rooms, on short notice. He was to play two more shows Monday night in San Francisco. He recently did a week of drop-ins at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles.

In February he showed up at the Comedy Cellar in New York, performing with Mr. Rock. As reported by the Web site the Comic’s Comic, Mr. Rock said he needed time to prepare his set, adding: “Dave’s like: Let’s just do it Wednesday. Unannounced.”

Tracking down Mr. Chappelle has become a comedy nerd pastime that requires close attention to social media and a willingness to drop everything and go. I heard about the shows here on Twitter the day before, bought one of the last tickets online and jumped on a plane. The show, the second of the night for him, was clearly not intended as a polished set. Comparing notes with audience members who had seen him before, I thought that it was more off the cuff, improvisational.

When Mr. Chappelle left his series, he said he felt uncomfortable when a white crew member laughed at a sketch about black stereotypes. On Thursday he didn’t ignore the way he departed so much as muse on it indirectly, without bitterness. Whether it was sex or race or politics, the subject matter of his comedy was always more familiar than his take on it. Mr. Chappelle still covers that territory, but his material also now seems more personal, even confessional

Controlling the context of comedy, an increasingly complex subject in the age of social media, was also a theme of the night. He explained he would do gay jokes in San Francisco because the audience would get the intent, but not in Mississippi. He also spent a perceptive minute or so analyzing and applauding how Quentin Tarantino handled the issue of black characters selling out their race in “Django Unchained.”