The new Amos 'n' Andy?

Perry's plays convey a Christian message. They're firmly rooted in the tradition of other chitlin circuit gospel shows such as "My Grandmother Prayed for Me," "God Don't Like Ugly" and "Why Good Girls Like Bad Boyz." But while those plays can be preachy, Perry keeps things lively with Madea, who has nothing but contempt for Christianity. ("When are we getting you to church?" a reverend asks Madea in one of the shows. "When you put in a smoking section," she snaps back.) That irreverence works just fine for Perry's fans. "I know Madea is crazy," says Bishop Paul Morton of New Orleans' Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church, the congregation in which Perry grew up, "but somebody always comes to God in the end."

Making a non-churchgoer the star of a Christian-themed show is an intriguing choice. And Perry sets himself apart in other ways as well, most notably by investing in a talented cast and strong production values. "When I came out on the circuit eight years ago, most of the plays had horrible acting, horrible sound, horrible writing, horrible everything," he recalls. "The audiences were only half-full because they had been burned so many times."

Transcending the worst parts of his genre, Perry has earned the respect of some major players in the highbrow black theater world. "Tyler goes way beyond the clichés," says Woodie King, founder and artistic director of New York's Tony Award-winning New Federal Theatre. "When Madea is trying to convince a girl to change her life, there's an honesty and brilliance. He taps into that wisdom of our grandmothers and mothers, and we sit there and say, 'Yes.' "

Others just say no. Gary Anderson, the founder and artistic director of Detroit's respected Plowshares Theatre, finds the Perry phenomenon offensive. He believes Perry's characters can be traced back to the insulting caricatures of Jim Crow-era minstrel shows. "He has the lazy coon, the pickaninny and the loose woman who wants everyone's man," says Anderson, adding that he sees Madea as a modern update on Sapphire, the nagging wife in that nadir of mid-20th-century racist stereotyping "The Amos 'n' Andy Show." "If a white person wrote these scripts, my community would be in outrage. I find it no less stinging that a black man wrote it."

Carlton Molette, a professor of dramatic arts and senior fellow of the Institute for African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut, takes a more favorable view. "I think some black people just hate to see other black folks laugh in public because they're afraid white folks won't take us seriously," he says. Molette teaches the stage version of "Madea's Family Reunion" alongside works by August Wilson and Amiri Baraka and sees a lot to like in Perry's work. "When white people see crime in the black part of town, they tend to forget that a lot of the people living there are hardworking, middle-class people who are appalled by what's going on around them," he says. "These are Tyler's fans. He doesn't cry about their situation. He says, 'This is our world. We have to live in it. Let's laugh at the ironies that exist and have a good life to the best of our abilities.'"

Perry's success at the multiplex has already started to change Hollywood. Other studios are starting to look for their own Tyler Perrys. Last October, Screen Gems signed a deal with chitlin circuit regular David E. Talbert for a movie called "First Sunday" about a couple of bumbling criminals who rob their local church.

Meanwhile, Perry's newfound power has brought a new responsibility that may move Perry away from the character that made him famous. He has begun to tone down some of his more extreme impulses. Four years ago, the theatrical version of "Madea's Family Reunion" featured a running gag about a crack baby and how ugly it was. But that shtick now embarrasses Perry. "Imagine if you were the child of parents who used drugs," he says. "How would it make you feel?" The crack baby isn't in the movie version of "Family Reunion," and neither are Madea's guns. Perry made that change after a recent shopping mall encounter with a mother and her young son. "This boy pointed his finger at me like it was a gun, and he said, 'Rock-a-bye, baby,' which is a Madea line," Perry recalls. "When I saw that, I thought, 'All right, no more guns.' If parents aren't going to be responsible for what's taken in, then I need to be."

And Madea herself may be retiring. When Perry appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in late January, he announced that his alter ego wouldn't be in either his next movie or his next play: He's sick of putting on a fat suit and women's makeup every day. "It has been six years, 250 to 300 shows a year," Perry told Winfrey, who has become a major supporter. "I need a break. I need to check in with Tyler."

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