Sun. Dec. 2

     “Support bacteria,” Steven Wright might say on stage. “It’s the only culture some people have.” Or, “What happens if you get scared half to death twice?” or “The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it."

     Wright came out of the Boston ‘80s comedy scene at the tiny Ding Ho club that produced so much talent, from Denis Leary to Bobcat Goldthwait to Barry Crimmins to Lenny Clarke to Steve Sweeney to Don Gavin to Michael McDonald to Jimmy Tingle to, well, the list goes on. Wright’s took a different tack than most. There was no attack in his comedy. No rage. Just almost a lethargic sense of bemusement at the way the world works and a surreal way of twisting that world – his inner world anyway – so that what he came up with made skewed sense. Not always the second you heard it. Maybe a second or two later. Or maybe it passed you by and he was on to the next one. Nothing particularly topical, everything deadpan, much of it steeped in irony. And with his monotone delivery and world-weary demeanor Wright, an Emerson College grad, gave the impression that these bizarre thoughts and juxtapositions just came to him naturally, as if he was just wired a little differently, but it was all completely normal to him. He got his big national break in 1982 when he killed on “The Tonight Show.” as an observer.

      I covered a benefit he did about two decades ago for the Globe and wrote: "Wright, no slouch as an observer, likes to distort and warp that reality -- he puts fun-house mirrors on his car, lives on a dead-end, one-way street, drinks instant coffee so he'll have enough energy to make regular coffee. He has no concept of crescendo; each joke or punchline has equal weight and everything is delivered with the same world-weary monotone. But most are filled with a sense of forehead-rubbing bewilderment and ironic wonder. Wright muses about how much deeper the ocean would be if it weren't for all those sponges down there; he talks about how much fun it is to put wet paint signs up all over town one night and then be the only one to sit on the benches the next day. Wright makes no sense; Wright makes perfect sense.”  JSInk caught up with Wright, now 57,  prior to his two performances at the Wilbur Theatre, Saturday Dec. 1 and Sunday Dec. 2.

Your comedy isn’t specific to a certain age group or demo. I remember thinking that when I first saw you. There was nothing that ear-marked it as comedy for “young” people.

I agree totally with that. I did that right from the beginning. I had four rules that I made up and that was one of them. I didn’t want to talk about something in the news or some presidential problem. I wanted to be able to float through time where I had not attachment to time.

Another one was I learned to not try jokes out on people, like friends. You had to do it on stage. I had a girlfriend when I started and I tried some jokes on her and she didn’t laugh. I wouldn’t do them. For some reason, one night I did some of the ones she didn’t laugh at and they went great. Or they worked. Then I was learning the stage is a different world. A one on one dynamic is different. I could tell someone a joke that I know works, that I’ve been doing for a long time and they would blankly look at me, because it’s not in the context or the atmosphere.

In the Facebook world, I've got some comic friends and some try 'em out.

Maybe they feel differently.

Sometimes, when I see you on stage, there will be blankness for a few seconds out in the audience while they’re figuring out the logic or illogic. You must be very comfortable with that delayed reaction time.

Yeah, people point it out to me, but I don’t even notice it really. I must be oblivious to it. I know some of the jokes are like mini-gymnastics so they have to do a quick math problem in their head 'til they get to the end of it. Sometimes that takes a little time.

So many comedians are quick-hit, rapid strife. They don’t want any dead air. If a joke misses, they’re quickly onto the next one. They fear the spaces where people aren’t laughing.

I don’t want that either.

But you’re willing to let it hang there.

You mean if the joke doesn’t work?

Does it affect you if it doesn’t?

I have two versions of it. I have the version in my head and the version from their point of view. In my head, it’s like “Oh my god, that didn’t work, I can’t believe it.” But another thing I learned is you have to act like it doesn’t faze you because there’s so much information going back and forth between you and the audience, it’s invisible. It has nothing to do with the work. If you get nervous about the joke not working, then the next joke, you say it in a nervous way and they’re gonna pick that up and the next joke doesn’t work and then it could snowball. If you’re sitting in a room and a guy had a tennis ball – this is for hecklers too – and he threw the tennis ball five inches from your ear and it hits the wall behind you and you have to not flinch.

How do you deal with a heckle situation?

I ignore it. I saw David Bromberg once at the Bottom Line and he was playing a song alone on the guitar, a quiet song, a song he’s talking and singing, and the crowd was just talking, like it was in a bar and that place is not supposed to be like that. Like it was a regular bar, like Holiday Inn and they didn’t come to see the show. I don’t understand how that could be. He played the guitar normal, like it completely wasn’t happening and I was blown away. I admired it. And I thought that’s part of what you have to do. You have to ignore.

To the work and let it go where it goes. I’ve seen other performers go after a heckler.

I can’t do that. I can’t go back and forth and rip the shit out of the guy. I don’t have that chip in my brain; it’s missing. Or my brain was built without that chip. All I know to do is ignore ignore ignore and if it kept going I would say “Fuck you” and it would shut ‘em up, because I don’t barely swear at all so …

It's more effective ...  How long a set are you doing now?

Oh, 80 minutes.

I’m under the impression that you have maybe three hours of material you can choose from. Do you choose beforehand what makes the cut or is it done on the fly?

It’s not on the fly. I did it on the fly for the first six years. I’d have it in my head in three Rolodexes of jokes and within that group I would pick off the top of my head as I was doing the show. I took six months off for some reason and I when I went back I was insane. I didn’t know how I did that. It was so complicated and stressful and insane, so then I changed and figured out a whole order in advance. It’s like a play to me, one long play and if I take something out or put something in I know exactly where it’s going. So, I didn’t have to waste any of my energy on choosing a joke. That job was eliminated. I could perform the joke even better, probably.

When I see you, I hear the jokes and one seems disconnected from the next. Is there a connective tissue in your mind?

Some of them are connected into stories. I have a couple of stories where I connect things. I did in the very beginning, before I went on television, and then I stopped doing it. I don’t remember why and they became all one-liners. And that’s how people know me. But now they see the show and they think I’m trying a new thing, but I’m really going back to the beginning. The order has been figured out  The subject matter has nothing to do with each other, but it’s like a puzzle, you’re moving around, testing it over time. Why does it go better? I don’t know why. I don’t care. It goes better.

There’s an inner logic to it?

Yeah, and you figure that out by their reaction.

Do you ever watch tapes of yourself?

No. When I do a special for Comedy Central I watched it, I suggested editing, but I don’t really watch it – you mean tape a recent show and look it at? No, because I think whatever I’m doing it’s natural to begin with. I dunno, maybe it would work. Maybe if I looked at it I would see something that would be better if I did do or didn’t do.

The ebb and flow of your set, it’s very funny and a great zone, but it goes along at a fairly even keel. Not the sharp, high peaks, the big belly laughs. After all these decades, people are used to it and know what you do, but when you started it was a real risk to be that dry and that deadpan.

I have jokes that are better than other jokes so they do get that laugh.

I guess what I’m saying is some guys build up to some outragous or climactic line – the big bang. I don’t see you doing that.

I didn’t think about it or analyze it at all. I tried to write jokes. And that’s how they came out. I was scared to be on stage. You’ve seen me in person (off stage) laughing and stuff. I was nervous, scared, and I talk in a monotone anyway and I talked more that way because I was nervous and I was concentrating on saying it the right way and then what is the next one. I’m doing a serious thing. I didn’t analyze changing it. I was just trying to get the joke from me to them. It was very innocent. OK, I’ll say this … that’s how much thought went into performing.

It’s a natural cadence then. ... We’re both Red Sox fans. You’re always sporting your Sox hat. Any predictions for 2013?  

I have no idea. I don’t trust them anymore. Even if they line up somebody, names that I knew, I don’t trust them. What the names are with what will happen on the field? You might have a Ferrari but it might only go 30.

Tix: $40-$30.

246 Tremont St., 617-248-9700 www.thewilburtheatre.com