B000FC0RL0 EBOK (50 page)

Every morning these talks became more enjoyable. Every day we’d talk about something else. We’d just sit and talk, listen to music, and drink coffee. It was a daily habit. It went on for months.

One morning I asked Anne, “What’s your secret? How can you do a scene ten times in a row the same way while I do it differently each time? Were the nuns that strict? Did you get it across the knuckles if you didn’t get it right? My Hebrew teacher chased me around the room with a ruler but even that didn’t make me consistent.”

“You really want to know?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s got to do with intention,” Anne said. “Know your intention in the scene. When you hear your cue, make an entrance and the rest will follow.”

I realized that when I waited in the wings, I hadn’t fully decided and was still searching for my intention. I would hear my cue and be in no-man’s land. How did this happen? It suddenly occurred to me that in all these years of performing I had never learned the meaning of structure. Anne was describing “technique.” Technique is synonymous with structure. It’s breaking down the scene, taking it apart, deconstructing it, then reconstructing it. It’s what made
Seinfeld
so great. Each of the stars was a master of deconstructing. They understood the importance of structure.

I always thought that analyzing would rob me of spontaneity. But the next time I performed, I followed Anne’s advice. I locked into my intention, worked on structure, and when I made my entrance, suddenly I was floating onstage. I was liberated. What a paradox: Structure had actually freed me. Working with
Seinfeld’s
young stars had taught me how to do this.

When I was a young actor, the absence of structure freed my imagination to run wild. My dreams could take shape and rule onstage. But a dream without structure, I soon discovered, evaporates. Acting is the flow of feeling without intellect, I believed. It’s an uncapped geyser of emotion that spews without intelligence, I thought. My chief fear was that intellectualizing would interfere with the flow of feeling. The acting genie would not pop out of the proverbial bottle.

In those years, I depended too much on inspiration, and inspiration didn’t show up at every performance. Why hadn’t I gotten this message earlier? I was full of myself and scared. But it finally did hit me—very late.

I realize now that I’ve learned more about myself by being an actor than I have ever learned about acting. I no longer want to be Eddie Cantor. I want to discover myself onstage.

The small plane is approaching Nantucket. I can’t wait to ride the bike without hands and maybe learn something new about myself. We land, we taxi, and I take a cab to our house, drop my bag, and open the bike shed. There it is. My steed.

Getting on a bike makes me feel like Columbus. But the landmarks I’m exploring are islands of thought hidden from myself. The bike is my release. When the wind shifts and propels me, my body becomes a sail. I stop pedaling. I soar silently like a gull. I own myself. I feel grand. An unfettering of the soul. The past becomes the present. I’m on a trip with no timetable, no limit on stopovers, and no destination.

Pedaling against the wind pumps blood into places in my brain that don’t always get energized. My unexamined life flashes before me like soundless television. The ride clearly defines my life.

The ride makes me feel like an old engine that is still turning over. Toward the end of my ride, my legs seemed weighted. I entertain the thought of flagging a lift with some compassionate passing motorist. The bike wheels rotate slowly. A cab passes. I could stop him, but the thought of chickening out humiliates me.

A gust smashes me in the chest. I’m in a battle, but it’s an imaginary war I’ve created between myself and everything in my life. Bullfighters take risks. Pilots. Deep-sea divers. I’m none of these. I’m an actor, and when I’m not onstage, riding a bike into the wind permits me to feel temporarily invincible. It releases me. I think of choices I can still make, if I’m willing to make them.

Suddenly I envision a Brooklyn street where a kid my own age was riding a red tricycle. I watch him circling the block. He must have guessed that I’d love to be doing what he was doing.

“Would you like a ride?” he asks.

Amazed at his generosity, I say yes.

“Take it around the block,” he suggests.

In my vision, my feet would just reach the pedals, thanks to blocks of
wood. When I finish the tricycle ride, I know I’ve traveled more than just around a city block. I’ve been given a passport to go to places I’ll someday visit. I too have discovered the wheel.

I get back to the house. Anne calls. “CBS left a message. They want you for a new show called
King of Queens
. You play the part of a deranged guy, somebody’s father, living in a basement.”

An actor must act.