Laugh quickly: Wright may bolt

If you catch comedian Steven Wright at The Orleans this weekend, you'll see a special show. He's been taking a break from comedy for a few months. After he plays these Vegas dates, he won't tour again until later this year.

As comedy fans know, Wright is the deadpan stand-up who speaks slowly and carries a big shtick, telling surreal and absurd jokes like, "I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."

He isn't exactly rusty. But he'll have to be on his toes tonight to stay sharp, because this is his first gig in a while, he says.

"It's a very weird thing, being in front of an audience. When you're doing it all the time, you get used to it," he says. But tonight, "I won't be used to it, so I might panic and just run off. Just run to the airport."

Wright also sings comedy songs, which is a form of comedy that often stinks, but Wright's funny songs are actually funny. He's thinking about adding an old tune to tonight's set, a little ditty "about a baby that grows up to be a prostitute."

"The premise is, when I'm a baby I can see into the future," he says. "I look at the little girl beside me and I can tell she's going to be a hooker when she grows up."

I inform him there might be prostitutes in the audience, since there are prostitutes around here. He isn't interested in this relevant hooker news, it seems. Another thing he's not interested in is practicing new material before laying it out onstage.

"I never rehearse," he says. "I just memorize the material. If it's a brand-new joke, I might say it out loud a few times just so it can flow out of me easily. But it's mainly memorizing and getting the show in my head."

That's a different method of preparation than other stage performers use, such as violinists, I say.

"No," he corrects me, "it's exactly the same, except there's no violin."

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 702-383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.