Photo: Steven Wright - Facebook
Steven Wright
Steven Wright
“I like making shit up.”
Steven Wright chuckles at the statement he makes regarding his voluminous creativity. He is not only responsible for over 40 years’ worth of often surreal one-liners delivered in a near-monotone with sharp observational wit. He also paints, acts, records voice-overs and composes songs. That’s a lot of ... stuff.
His status as a unique comedic voice that brings him to the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center (901 15th Ave., South Milwaukee) on Friday October 7 for an 8 p.m. performance.
Until about four months ago, Wright's voice was silenced from touring due to the forced hiatus he took during the pandemic and his continued caution. “Almost,” says Wright when asked whether life has gotten back to pre-pandemic normalcy. “I don’t go to baseball games,” laments the Boston Red Sox fan, adding, “I don’t eat out much at restaurants. I don’t go around crowds.”
Among the things keeping him busy from the time the coronavirus hit the U.S. today is one of the major activities in which any comedian desiring to stay fresh must engage: writing.
“I like to write things a couple hours a day, Everyday, I get up, drink some coffee and write,” he says. A mere five-minute set of his material can contain 20 to 23 jokes, with room for audience laughter (he counted!). For what could be considered preparation for his twice-rescheduled current tour, Wright shares, “I wrote many new jokes” for when he was again comfortable taking to the road.
Delivering Zingers
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The facility Wright has honed for creating and delivering zingers that positions him somewhere between Henny Youngman’s Borscht Belt schtick and Mitch Hedberg’s spaced out musings comes not only from teen years watching comics on Johnny Carson and listening to comedy albums on FM underground radio. His endeavors in visual art played a part.
Though he now favors abstract expressionism for his painting, the representational style Wright adopted in his youth has transferred to his comedy. “The bottle has a shape. The vase has a shape. And The space between them has a shape,” Wright says of how he sees a still life subject and how that view has shape his comedy, “Painting realistically helped.” But ...
“All comedy is from noticing things,” Wright declares. He draws another analogy to describe how he pays attention to the parade that passes by us all daily. Life, is like “a giant, live mosaic painting that just keeps going past you.” His corresponding key to happiness, then, is “The only thing anyone has to do is be aware.”
No, uh, stuff.
From 1982, here Wright is making television debut on “The Tonight Show” and chatting afterward with Carson ...
