Boston Globe  |  November 12, 2004

Stella performs for argument's sake

By Nick A. Zaino III, Globe Correspondent

No one in the three-man troupe Stella has a good description for what they do. David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black have developed a collective sense of humor over 15 years of working together, dating to their days as NYU students in the late '80s. But getting them to try to pin down that humor is no easy task.

"We try not to get too analytical or introspective about our material or what we're doing," says Wain. "We just try to continue to do the best, funniest material we can."

The onstage dynamic of Stella, which plays a sold-out Paradise Rock Club Thursday with Eugene Mirman, can be purposefully tense. Black calls it "professional bickering," sort of a postmodern Smothers Brothers.

Sketches will break down as each vies for the best role, or they will ask the audience whether an offhand comment was actually funny. The show is improvised around a script, but no one will say how much of the show is spontaneous and how much is planned. Showalter chooses to leave the question open. "When people aren't sure if what they're watching is real or not, it kind of creates a tension," he says. "We have a certain amount of tension that's very ripe comedically."

Black credits the group's success to the unique three-person format and to the shorthand the three have developed from working together for so long. "What we do, pretty much, is stand on the stage and argue with each other about stupid things," he says.

The live show is a mix of these three-man sketches and film shorts written, directed, and produced by the group, which evolved from the MTV sketch show "The State." Each member has his own impressive pedigree. Showalter appeared as a regular on "Sex and the City," Black on "Ed." Wain directed the cult hit "Wet Hot American Summer," which he wrote with Showalter. All three appeared in the film, as they will in "The Baxter," Showalter's first film as director, writer, and actor. They have also appeared on VH1's "I Love the 80s" and "I Love the 70s."

A blend of their act has made it to a pilot for Comedy Central, the fate of which is still up in the air. Here again, audiences will have to decide for themselves how to describe the show. The guys in Stella either don't have a good answer or they're not saying. Showalter compares the show to German expressionist film. "It's mostly silent, and the parts of it that aren't silent are in German," he deadpans.

Black concurs, adding, "Did you see the movie 'Ice Castles' with the ice skaters in the '70s? It's a lot like that, too."