JERRY SEINFELD On the role of comedy in a time of crisis, yada yada yada
Laughter’s the best medicine, standup comedian insists
Many of us have been wondering lately what Jerry Seinfeld, the sitcom character, would be doing in this current era of home quarantines and social distancing: how his extreme fastidiousness, self-centredness and constant scrutiny of quotidian details (not to mention the hyperbolic traits of his fictional friends and neighbours) would be stretched to hilarious extremes in an environment of isolation and anxiety.
However, the real Jerry Seinfeld — the one who gave up the sitcom long ago to focus on an occasional talk show and a peerless standup career — is not the same guy.
While he has been sheltering in place with his wife, Jessica, and their three children, he is as devoted as ever to his daily rituals and habits, and still inescapably prone to atomic-level observations of human behaviour.
But he is also self-conscious in a way that you never see in his act: He cracks jokes and then wonders whether it’s appropriate to do so or if people even want to laugh right now. These are difficult questions to wrestle with when you’re a comedian, and like everyone else, Seinfeld is trying to figure out who he is and what he should do now.
Though he prefers to present himself publicly in the classic standup’s attire of a suit and tie, Seinfeld appeared last
Wednesday wearing a simple sweatshirt that read “GARAGE,” in a Zoom session from his house in the Hamptons.
It was Seinfeld’s 66th birthday, and the video call took a few minutes to activate, requiring an intervention from the comedian’s more tech-savvy daughter, Sascha, who is 19. (“The youth of America,” he said, beaming with fatherly pride.)
Sitting in a room decorated with family photos, books, model cars and a copy of the Allan Sherman comedy album “My Son, the Nut,” Seinfeld talked about his evolving feelings on comedy, its power and its deficiencies during this time.
From that perspective, he also contemplated his new standup special, “23 Hours to Kill,” which Netflix released Tuesday; Seinfeld is aware that its jokes about the minor indignities of public gatherings, internet communication and the Postal Service may now play very differently than when the set was recorded in October at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan.
Seinfeld said he wasn’t sure whether the special would be his farewell to filmed comedy, but he described his overall professional outlook as “postshow business”: “I’m really just into the pure art of it now,” he explained. “Just the bit, the audience and the moment. I’m more interested in that than ever, and I’m less interested in everything else.”
Seinfeld spoke further about his reflections in quarantine, his need for routine and what he hopes comedy and New York will look like when this all ends. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.
When did the pandemic start feeling serious to you?
I knew instantly. I called my tour producer and said, “Get ready to start cancelling dates.” It was like running in front of a tsunami. Let’s head for the hills. But part of your makeup in this profession is adaptation. You just become highly adaptable to everything. So this is just another thing to adapt to.
So you’re finding you can still make jokes right now?
Not really, to tell you the truth. I don’t really feel that funny. It’s hurting so many people, so brutally. I’m not in the mood to be funny. It’s like you’re a bird and then suddenly they change your cage. You’re just not sure who you are now.
You have a reputation as a neat freak. Do you feel that’s been validated now?
I’m not a germophobe. I’m more about organized behaviour routines.
Yes, I do put my toothpaste on the same spot all the time. I’m not OCD, but I love routine. I get less depressed with routine. You’re just a trained animal in a circus. I like that feeling: Now we’re going to do this trick, now we’re going to do that trick. That makes me feel better. I don’t want too much mental freedom. I have too much of that anyway.
Do you find yourself yearning to get back onstage when you haven’t been able to do it for several weeks?
It’s kind of like missing your friends. I would love to hang out with them, but I can’t. You just accept it. I still have a writing session every day. It’s another thing that organizes your mind. The coffee goes here. The pad goes here. The notes go here. My writing technique is just: You can’t do anything else. You don’t have to write, but you can’t do anything else. The writing is such an ordeal. That sustains me.
Do you worry that standup comedy won’t ever be what it was before and the audiences just won’t come back like they once did?
No chance of that. People are going to go back, first of all, because laughter is the greatest feeling of release that there is. And No. 2, the comedians are going to adapt so much quicker than everyone else. The TV shows won’t quite know what to make. The movie people might not know what to make. The comedians, within three nights, will know what to be doing. Because you’ll get that feedback instantly of what works and what doesn’t.