ART

Steven Wright Deadpans At State

By Bryan VanCampen

The last time Steven Wright played the State eater, he did a bit about going to the video store to rent a movie starring Nicolas Cage and Hayley Mills, and I howled. And that was just the set-up to one of Wright’s patented surrealist one-liners that he’s been telling since his breakout success in the early 1980s. He’s also been in lms like “Reservoir Dogs,” “Natural Born Killers” and “Half Baked.” Steven Wright returns to the State eater on Saturday, October 22 at 8pm. He spoke to the Ithaca Times about “Dr. Katz, Professional erapist,” COVID and what constitutes a good batting average for new jokes.

Ithaca Times: I was just looking at some of your “Dr. Katz Professional erapist” episodes. It seems like your particular brand of stand-up really gave the animators a lot of room to be even more surreal than the usual episodes.

Steven Wright: anks. When he asked me to do that, one of the things I told him was, I would do it, but I wasn’t gonna do any of the material from my act. So he was ne with that, so I went over to the studio where they did it and we would just make stu up for, I don’t know, an hour, and then he would cut it down to what he liked, you know? at was really fun to do that.

IT: And didn’t they give you a drawing of yourself?

SW: Yes, they did, I have it somewhere, yes.

IT: How was your COVID time?

SW: is March I started to do shows; it was two years and four months that I hadn’t done one. And it was interesting not doing it. But I still wrote things all the time, some of it stand-up, some of it not. I mean, in my mind, I couldn’t go on the road and do a show, but my mind never stopped at all. And it was interesting ‘cause I hadn’t done it that long since I started, you know, I’ve been doin’ it since 1979. e longest break I ever had before that was six months. And it was interesting to not be doing it. And then when I came back to doing it, stepped right back in. ere’s no other place like being on the stage. It’s very alive and electric, and being in front of the audience. So now I’m back into doin’ it again. Have you ever performed on a stage?

IT: I started doing stand-up in 2013, and prior to that I’d done a lot of acting, since the age of six.

SW: Did we talk about that [in the last interview]?

IT: Probably. I don’t know how o en you’re interviewed by someone who’s done it, you know.

SW: Very rarely. Occasionally. You still doing it?

IT: Yes. ere’s a great twice-monthly open mic down the street from the State at the Downstairs. You ever say something and just get nothing back?

SW: Are you kiddin’ me? So you know what it’s like. ere’s no other place that I’ve experienced. You know that being onstage is di erent than anywhere else. Only one in four jokes that I write gets a big enough laugh to stay in the act. One in three or one in four. So that means that I’m constantly weeding out material, and that means ¾ of what I write doesn’t work. So when you see a show that I actually do, it’s taken years to weed out what doesn’t work. And one in three is good, actually, one in four is good. Like, a baseball player is batting .300, that’s good. But he got out seven out of ten times. So, anyway, you’re asking me if it happened to me, it happens to me all the time with new material. And in my opinion, that’s the hardest thing about doing this, is to stand there and say something and you get complete silence. And then you just have to move on. at is the absolute hardest thing of doing this.

IT: Well, let me ask you this. You started with Barry Crimmins at the Deng

Steven Wright says only one in four of his new jokes gets a big enough laugh to stay in his act. (Photo: Provide)