Sheen show gets warmer welcome in Chicago

Charlie Sheen honed his stage show, "My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option," in Chicago Sunday after a disastrous premiere in Detroit the day before.

The Chicago show, second in a planned 20-city tour, was primarily a Q&A, minus the rapper, videos and rambling monologue of the Detroit show. The audience gave the actor a standing ovation when the show ended. "It was a canny shift of the show's tone, from epic self-aggrandizement to a more casual, at times even likable, persona," wrote the Chicago Tribune's Steve Johnson.

Sheen plays Cleveland Tuesday night, with gigs at Radio City Music Hall Friday and Sunday.

During the Chicago show, Sheen said that he'd consider returning to his now-in-limbo CBS sitcom, "Two and a Half Men."

"Here's a ---- news flash," he told the sold-out crowd at the Chicago Theatre, dropping one of many expletives as he and an unnamed interviewer sat onstage against a big-screen video backdrop of themselves. "This is really complicated," he said sardonically. "Try and ---- follow me on this one: If they hire me back, I'll do it again. . . . If they say, 'Hey, here's your job back,' I'll go back to work. I signed a ---- contract. I'm a man of my word, unlike those ---- trolls."