Movies, TV aside, Wright’s first love is still stand-up

One always wonders just what a comedian is like without a stage, spotlight or audience.

In the case of Steven Wright, the person speaking over the phone on a rainy day somewhere in Massachusetts seemed not all that different from the fellow who appeared in the stoner movie “Half Baked” or as a recurring character in the TV show “Mad About You,” and it will likely be that same guy who performs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.

Mostly it’s the voice – dry, slow, like molasses in January and hypnotically monotone. So when Wright says, “I love going onstage” and honestly means it, the delivery makes the statement sound, well, funny.

But what would you expect from an entertainer with an autobiographical statement on his Web site that reads: “I was born. When I was 23, I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That’s still what I am doing. The end.”

To elaborate a bit, the Burlington, Mass., native started doing stand-up just after graduating from Emerson College in Boston. He was funny. He was discovered and got his big break by going on the “Tonight Show.” This fulfilled his adolescent aspirations of being a comedian.

“As a kid, as like a 14-year-old, I was watchin’ the ‘Tonight Show’ all the time, and I started thinking that that’s what I’d like to do, be a guy who goes on the ‘Tonight Show,'” Wright recalls. “I watched the show for years and I listened to comedy albums. That was my goal, that was my fantasy.”

Wright has been performing for a little more than 20 years, and has racked up numerous TV appearances and released his own comedy albums. In 1989 Wright won an Academy Award for the short film “The Appointments of Dennis Jennings,” which he co-wrote and starred in. His list of big-screen roles has grown steadily over the years and includes films such as “Desperately Seeking Susan,” “So I Married an Axe Murderer” and “Natural Born Killers.” But one of his best-known roles might be as the voice of the radio disc jockey that is heard throughout Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 breakthrough film, “Reservoir Dogs.”

“It was fun,” Wright says of his experience working with the “Pulp Fiction” writer and director. “He’s very passionate about what he’s doing. He likes to fool around and he’s very excited about it. He’s a very positive guy. It’s like he’s a kid playing in his basement.”

Even with all the movie and television work, Wright’s first love is still doing stand-up, despite the wearing-and-tearing grind of traveling from town to town.

“There’s just something electric about being in front of the crowd,” he said. “And then there’s your imagination that you’re conveying to them and if they’re into it, which most of it they’re into, getting a response from all these ideas you’ve had. That’s exciting, that they like it and they laugh. It’s all a big rush. To make stuff up and have people enjoy it. I feel lucky that I can even make a living from doing this.”

And how does Wright create such clever absurdities as, “What’s another word for thesaurus?”

“It just kind of floats into my mind,” he explained. “I see a sign, I read a word … I don’t get up and say, ‘OK, I’m going to write jokes today.’ I can’t write a joke on purpose.”

But what would Wright, a comic best known for essentially being himself onstage, be doing if his career as a comedian hadn’t panned out?

“I don’t know what I would be doing, but I hope it would be something else with my imagination,” he said. “To create and making a living from it is something I would want to do.”

George Bragdon is a Style Desk intern. He can be reached at gbragdon@bangordailynews.net. For tickets, call the Maine Center for the Arts box office at 581-1755.