Before starting his performance on Thursday night at the Midland Theater in Kansas City, Mo., which was simulcast to more than 440 movie houses around the country, Glenn Beck walked over to the camera, waved and acknowledged the critic for The New York Times. The poor guy was in a theater somewhere in New York, Mr. Beck said, “all by himself.”

Actually, at that moment I was one of eight people watching at theater No. 6 of the Clearview Chelsea Cinema, a total that would grow to 14 and hold there until almost the end of the show. (More on that later.) Not for the last time that night, Mr. Beck  the comedian, Fox News host and suddenly hot spokesman for American populist discontent  was hazy on the specifics but shrewdly aware of where his listeners were.

The small group was audibly pro-Beck, laughing at the same times as the capacity audience in Kansas City and occasionally saying something in menacing tones about the Federal Reserve or the progressive income tax. Being the critic, I didn’t cheer or heckle, but I did yell at the screen once, something I don’t think I’d ever done in a movie theater. It was 50 minutes in, when Mr. Beck announced that he was taking a 15-minute break and coming back for the second half of the show. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” was out of my mouth before I knew what was happening.

What comic  and this was billed as the Common Sense Comedy Tour  takes a 15-minute break? (Or does a two-hour show?) Maybe one whose live audience  and I say this with the utmost respect for both sides of this equation  has an age range similar to what you’d find at a Broadway play. But also one whose performance is an odd and unwieldy combination of stand-up, revival meeting, motivational seminar and stump speech. And that’s before Mr. Beck emerges from the intermission in white Colonial wig and knee breeches for an hourlong lecture on American history and self-reliance.