Las Vegas Weekly

February 12, 2010 · 7:35 AM

Part 2: Jason Alexander on the risks and rewards of Donny Clay

By Robin Leach

Jason Alexander.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

Actor Jason Alexander says of his one-man showcase The Donny Clay Experience, about the world’s fourth-best motivational speaker, “It’s me, the girls, the audience, anybody. All I can tell you is nudity will happen. One way or another, there is going to be nakedness on that stage.”

Donny Clay’s second performance is tonight in the Peepshow Theater at Planet Hollywood and has a one-month run through March 14, although it could be extended. Here is Part 2 of our chat with the actor who will be forever linked to Seinfeld; Part 1 of our interview with Jason was posted yesterday.

Robin Leach: Does Donny Clay need therapy?

Jason Alexander: Among many other things, yes. Donny really doesn’t have a clue. And to steal a line from Seinfeld that was said about George, Donny needs a team of psychiatrists working around the clock, 24 hours a day, trying to come up with a solution for him.

RL: Is this Vegas version different from its other lives?

JA: For corporate showcases, we have gone all over the country. This version of the show, for a general audience, truthfully, we only started doing last summer. We have only been to 10 locations. It has taken on such a tremendous response that the producers came in and saw us in Atlantic City and said they were bringing us to Vegas. I was stunned at how quickly a show like this made it to the Valhalla of Vegas. You are the ultimate destination.

I tell you, quite honestly, I am never nervous about Donny, except there is all this activity, energy and money being tossed up around this Vegas venue, and I go, boy, I hope we are ready for this big time! We seem to be. The audience response is great, I think we’ve written the show about as well as we can. I think it’s different and unique and funny. A very full entertainment production. But, crap, man, it’s Vegas, ya know?

RL: I want to ask you a Seinfeld question in context of doing Donny. In Seinfeld as George, you were part of a troupe of players, and here in Donny, you are one man. Are you walking off the edge of a tight rope?

JA: Absolutely, every time, on so many levels. First of all, even if George was a one-man show and it didn’t go well, I could still say, ‘Well, I didn’t write it.’ I can’t say that here. I co-wrote this thing. Half of this is totally my creation. I’m up there by myself. It is a different kind of thing for most audiences. The people trying to sell this show have a hell of time trying to explain to people what it even is. It has an element of danger to it, on all levels. On a creative level, I’m alone, and it is different. On a business level, we could have made some wrong choices.

But I gotta tell you, that’s what makes it exciting. I don’t have any illusions about being in another Seinfeld in my lifetime, so the things that I look for are the projects that are interesting and challenging to me -- and can I take them on? That’s what the rest of my career is going to be. Things that reward me and hopefully are attractive to an audience.

RL: When you just said to me that you are alone up there, raw and exposed, where do you go onstage if something doesn’t work? What do you do when you are up there live and it suddenly goes off track or hopelessly wrong?

JA: You kind of become a split personality. Part of you goes, ‘I’m this character and I’m going to truck through it, and I’m going to feel out why it isn’t working if it isn’t working.’ Try to almost go through the way the character would feel through it. If you were a real motivational speaker and you weren’t connecting with the audience, there might be a whole lot of techniques you would try. So part of me is doing that. The other part of me is in my directing head going, ‘Oh, this doesn’t quite work that way. Maybe it’s too long or maybe the visual element doesn’t add to it. Something is out of kilter.’

There are actually two heads on my shoulders working at the same time. They are both contemplating different things. The audience would probably just see a guy trying to get the performance back on track. We actually had a thing in one of our venues where we had a very, very drunk woman in the crowd who wanted to engage with Donny. She wasn’t yelling George or anything. She was really trying to get the attention of Donny. The Donny in me was trying to figure out what he would do in that situation. Would he counsel one person to the detriment of the whole room? It was really fascinating, not fun, but really fascinating.

RL: I take it that in preparation for the writing of this and the development of this that you looked at tapes of such people as Dr. Phil and Tony Robbins. What conclusion did you come to from watching them? Did you realize that they were the perfect targets for a show like this?

JA: Well we thought so. What we were looking at primarily, one of the ones that makes me laugh more than anybody else, and this is nothing against the people involved, is Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart is not thought of as a motivational speaker, but she is one of these people who is portrayed as let me show you how to do everything better. And you want to believe that Martha Stewart goes home and burns the toast. She can’t talk to her own ex-husband. Or she can’t go out on a date and be a normal human being because … that to us is the funny part, Robin. The disparity in it. I will tell you how to achieve your highest potential knowing full well I am miles away from my own.

That is what is funny. The way they conduct themselves in their work is when Tony Robbins is inspiring. When you are sitting there, you get jazzed. He has got a pretty good personal story; he has overcome demons in his life. He has achieved something enormous. He has high energy, and he has a seemingly huge commitment to what he is saying, and you are totally seduced by it. I don’t think I would sit there and go, ‘Oh, he is full of crap.’ You sit there, and you would have to step away and go, ‘What did he tell me that is actually useful?’ Did he just say you can do it, or did he say do this? Most of the time, they are saying you can do it, not do this.

RL: Did you ever go to see one of these guys in person?

JA: I once worked with Tony Robbins. I had a great personal exchange with him. I have watched Dr. Phil on a number of occasions. I have listened to Dr. Laura on a number of occasions. I have been reading Wayne Dyer’s blogs and books. But they are all wonderful, and they are all ridiculous. I really mean that. There is value that comes from every one of them, and they are all just silly.

RL: Have any of them ever been to see Donny Clay?

JA: No, I don’t think so, but I hope they would dare to come. Donny and Richard Simmons could get into a real spitting match. I think it would be great fun, ya know, if I could convince Phil to take Donny on as an adversary. I think it would be funny.

I remember when Dr. Phil was just coming off the Oprah thing and starting to develop his own show. He was very open to us using his name, developing him as a character and having a rivalry with that character. It might be fun. I think Donny has to prove himself as something that has staying power before these guys are willing to put their reputations on the line.

RL: Sum-up question: Las Vegas audiences are a unique group of people probably all desperately in need of direction in some way. It is an audience that is made up of few people who live here and understand this place, but it is an audience that comes from all cross sections of America. How do you think you are going to deal with people who are perhaps more interested in playing black jack or finding fornication?

JA: I think what you do is play right into their hands. The thought process of buying a ticket is, ‘We are interested in diverting our attention for 90 minutes. Give us something.’ We are actually making fun of stuff that each and every one of them, no matter where they came from, is dealing with. We talk about money, we talk about body issues, we talk about love and sex, and we talk about feelings of being judged by other people, how we are being judged and how we are being seen. Making fun of each and every one of them, and it is all common humanity. So it doesn’t matter if it is a surgeon from New England or a bulldozer driver from Mississippi. Those issues are always on the table. I think we are hitting the most common ground.

It is a smart show, but it’s not smarter than the room. It’s not lowbrow comedy. It’s fairly smart comedy. But I think it’s the kind of comedy where people go, ‘I’m getting this -- this is funny.’ And Donny is the biggest fool in the room, so even though I am making fun of everybody else, it is coming from the guy who you feel superior to no matter what is going on in your life. It is very hard to impress a Vegas audience, but it is not incredibly hard to entertain them. That’s what this is. It’s an entertainment.

I am not getting up there as a singer going here are my hits and you should genuflect them for me. I am not catching cannon balls in my eye and leaping off buildings like Cirque du Soleil. And it’s also something the audience gets involved with themselves. They are not just being lectured to and entertained at. They are a part of it, and it is an experience. I think Vegas audiences want an experience, and I think this show has a pretty good chance of giving them one. Everybody has a problem, and Donny is the one guy who will be able to solve it. The reason that you don’t succeed is because you’re not you, and the best way to become you is to be more like me.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

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Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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