Stella Comedy

Alt-comedy icons Michael Showalter, David Wain, and Michael Ian Black, alumni of MTV’s much missed sketch comedy show The State, have been performing their live comedy show Stella since 1997 in Manhattan. An anarchic stage show loosely structured around events in the lives of three nymphomaniac simpletons, Stella has gained international popularity thanks in part to the ready online availability of the self-consciously low-budget videos that are the centerpieces of the live performances, which follow Showalter, Wain, and Black as they embark upon a series of mundane adventures, such as playing wiffle ball, ordering pizza, and indiscriminately humping inanimate objects. Thus, as a result of this broad new fanbase, the three comedians decided to take their show on the road. Their 10 July show at Chicago’s Logan Square Auditorium was the final stop on a 12-city tour. The show started about 90 minutes late, thanks in large part to poor line discipline on the part of the comedy nerds and trucker-capped emo kids who made up the bulk of the audience (note to fashion world: for the love of God, leave the trucker caps to America’s hardworking CB jockeys and longshoremen). Opener Eugene Mirman finally came on around 11:30, looking lost, or drunk, but he pleasantly surprised with a very funny set, highlights of which included his PowerPoint presentation on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and a video of himself from the future, emphatically declaring: “Do not trust President Nick Nolte!” Showalter, Wain, and Black came on almost immediately afterwards, beginning the show by waving ribbons on sticks and dancing in unison to a Spin Doctors song for about five minutes. Uncomfortably long yet humorous precisely because of its length, the bit was reminiscent of the scene in the Simpsons episode “Cape Feare” in which Sideshow Bob steps on about a dozen rakes in succession, with exactly the same reaction each time. That scene was the deconstruction of an inherently stupid joke; the joke’s interminable extension transforming it into something uniquely hilarious. Stella’s modus operandi is much the same: the absurdist extrapolations of everyday mundanities and numerous show-business conventions, filtered through the childlike characters created by Showalter, Wain, and Black. Jokes are not told; when they are, they are self-consciously lame and ‘jokey.’ Instead, Stella finds humor in the characters’ celebration of the commonplace. Their bickering self-introductions went on for five minutes, ending with the three of them enthusiastically thanking the audience in unison. The group mocked audience participation by leading the audience in a cheer (“When I say ‘Stella,’ you say ‘Cheer!’ When I say ‘King,’ you say ‘Lear!'”) that devolved into an advertisement for John Deere Mowers. They solicited the name of a celebrity (Gene Hackman) from the audience, promising to use the name in a way that we had never heard before — when they did use the name, it was predictably underwhelming (“What in the name of Gene Hackman are you talking about?”).
Stella’s pretensions would be unpleasant if the actors presenting them used a mocking or ironic tone. Thankfully, Black, Wain, and Showalter have steered clear of this. Their characters are blissfully unique: latently homosexual idiot man-children with short attention spans, unfailingly polite yet incredibly petty. They proclaimed that the theme of the night’s show was friendship, yet spent a good ten minutes discussing Michael Ian Black’s new play, David Wain’s a Superfag. As in Wain’s 2001 film Wet Hot American Summer, the character interactions seem to resolve around trigger-less conflicts and unwarranted resolutions. Talking about the Irish for some reason, Michael Showalter enthusiastically exclaimed that he was looking forward to eating “all those great Irish foods like fish tacos and Irish soda bread.” David Wain spoke a cautionary word: “Hey Mike, if you eat all those foods, you’ll get a tummy ache.” Showalter turned and screamed “Fuck you David!” It’s all incredibly strange, but for the most part it works. The show ran aground in the middle with an ill-conceived bit about them and Weird Al Yankovic at a Grammy Awards after-party. Making fun of marginal celebrities like Weird Al is pathetically easy. Even if the manner in which it’s done is original — in this case, Black, Wain, and Showalter bragged about having group sex with Weird Al at a deserted Applebee’s — it still borders on trite. Thankfully, the three came back strong with their video in which they and Paul Rudd went foraging for frankfurters in the wilderness. The show closed much like it started, with Black, Wain, and Showalter exclaiming “Yay, we did it, hurray!” and freezing like the end of an ’80s after-school special while “Fire and Rain” played in the background. Bizarrely engaging, incredibly funny, Stella is as unique a comedy show as you are ever likely to see.