When Paula Poundstone stepped onstage at the Berklee Performance Center Friday night, it was the first time she had ntertained a Boston audience since the news of her arrest on charges of endangering a child became a media frenzy last summer. She has had only a handful of gigs since. Still, Poundstone has never been funnier.

Poundstone has always been able to wring funny material from what seems like tired comedic ground, like dogs and cats and airline food. She has always worked the crowd in a way that made everybody laugh - including her target in the audience. But she's never been dark, and she's never been overly personal. At Berklee, she offered up the most difficult issues in her life, and the audience in her native city supported her every step of the way.

Over the course of two hours, she discussed her experience in jail, her relationship with her children, her sexuality, and her addictions (to both alcohol and, on a lighter note, caffeine). The audience didn't hesitate to laugh.

Poundstone came out in a blue suit and vest with a long jacket, complaining of static cling. As she separated her jacket from her pants, she said, ''As if enough hasn't ... gone wrong this year.''

It was a quick acknowledgement, and removed any tension the crowd may have been feeling. There were moments when it seemed she had unraveled; she would go a little hoarse or speak a little too quietly. At one point, she talked about having tried suicide. Inevitably, though, the punch line was light.

She talked about being foiled trying to hang herself with the cord from her curtains when she fell to the floor and the curtains opened.

One of the funniest moments came when she talked of being questioned by her ''jailer.'' Of all the things that she may have expected, the question that most befuddled her was, ''Whaddaya like, men or women?'' Wondering if it was a question of preference or safety, she replied, ''I don't like attackers of either gender.''

She claimed her one phone call was to Dick Van Dyke, because she figured she ought to have one perk, and really enjoyed his work.

At the end of the show, she was struggling visibly to find something ''meaningful and deep,'' she said, to leave the audience with something for them to think about on the way home. She offered up one anecdote about being close to death and not seeing the bright light, envisioning her friends and relatives trying to hide it and shushing each other.

It didn't seem like the moment she was searching for.

Then she looked up, smiled, and simply thanked the audience for being there.

It was all they needed to send her off with a standing ovation.