What’s the deal with Jerry Seinfeld?
Okanagan Weekend
It’s always a bit surreal to watch a master of their craft at work.
At one point in Jerry Seinfeld’s performance at the South Okanagan Events Centre, Thursday, while examining the outdated form of communication that is talking face to face, he said he might as well be a blacksmith on stage. I’m going to take that metaphor and run with it in a minute, so hold on.
Prior to seeing the undisputed king of observational humour, I continued to hear the same questions.
“What is he going to talk about?” Or “what is his act even about now?”
The answer now is the same as it was during his monster hit NBC sitcom run, absolutely nothing, and it’s fantastic.
While the world has seemingly gone mad, there are a few constants: taxes, death and Seinfeld.
The man has mastered the art of examining the inane in detail, putting the everyday under the microscope and is able to weld it all together flawlessly (as if he were a master blacksmith, remember from before?)
Instead of delving into politics, or the already comical news of the day, Seinfeld applies his tried and true formula to food, drink, restaurants, cell phones, cookies and opens with a fantastically meta bit thanking the audience for undertaking the daunting task of leaving our homes to go to the show, breaking life into two modes: going somewhere and getting the hell out of there.
I grew up adoring the “show about nothing.” I think Seinfeld may have been the first comedian I ever saw on TV, or anywhere for that matter, and it started a love of comedy that has lasted me to this day, and I’m sure the rest of my life.
Seinfeld is artisanal, he hits the stage in a flurry and before you know it two hours have gone by. Having followed his career for some time, it was a particular treat (pardon the soon-to-be-obvious pun) to see his material on Pop Tarts. Not just because it’s a funny bit, but last year the New York Times ran a small feature on how he writes a joke, unveiling the process of how he crafts together material, showing him work through the Pop Tart joke from conception to punch line.
As someone who has been innately following comedy since I can remember, it was great to see a joke from conception on a pen and pad, to the tour-polished final version.
Seinfeld had a surprising amount of material on Penticton, noting how exciting it was for him to be here (for us) and riffing on the metal children statue on Okanagan Lake, or just having fun with the words Penticton and Okanagan. He has a formula, and it clearly works. While a determent of comedy as a whole can be its lack of shelf life, Seinfeld has somehow cracked the code. For the most part, his jokes in front of the soldout crowd at the SOEC could have been told 10 years ago and garnered the same uproarious laughter.
Dale Boyd is a reporter with Okanagan Weekend and current board member with the Penticton Arts Council.