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NY Theater: “Lenny Bruce…In His Own Words” is Surreal, EdgyAttacks on “dirty” words were an excuse to stop his satire of religionBy Lucy Komisar
They also ran them through the heart of Lenny Bruce, who had the effrontery to skewer their bigotry and their corrupt religious leaders as well as to use four-letter words – plus a ten-letter word that famously got him arrested. Fisher has perfected the Bruce style, with a laid-back demeanor, New York accent, a maniacal gleam in his eye, and a shoulders forward shuffle-walk that makes you think he is being pulled on a line. He is edgy, full of energy, and an excellent mimic. The play is comprised of Bruce’s most famous routines, verbatim. It makes me regret never to have seen the original. Consider these: “What is a Jew?” Bruce asks. “One who killed Our Lord. I don’t know how much press that got in New York.” Then he quips, “We found a note in the basement. ‘I did it,’ signed Morty.” “Why did you kill Christ?” says the unseen interlocutor. “Because he didn’t want to become a doctor,” comes the answer, turning the stereotype into a Jewish joke. Or religious leaders as hustlers: Bruce proposes cocktail napkins emblazoned with “Another martini for Mother Cabrini.” Or the racist evangelist Oral Roberts talking to the Pope: “They’re bugging us with that dumb integration.” Pause. “I don’t know why they want to go to school, either.”
Bruce fantasizes marrying a horse and being run out of town by the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, he was run out, or banned from, a lot of towns. He was busted for obscenity in San Francisco in 1961, “for using a ten-letter word that begins with a c and ends with an r.” He says the real reason for the arrest was because he attacked the Catholic Church. A trial in Chicago, where judge, jury and prosecutor were Catholic and the judge’s statements convicted him before the trial, made kangaroo courts look good. Bruce was arrested 19 times for dope and obscenity and banned from the UK and Australia. Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Archbishop of New York, worked with Manhattan district attorney, Frank Hogan, to plant detectives at Bruce’s performances and arrest him twice. He lost his house to lawyers’ fees. “What is obscene?” he inquires. “The decadence that rules this country. Big time religion is obscene. The war is obscene.” The show is engaging and sometimes surreal when one realizes the danger of saying those words half a century ago. It also locates on the long continuum of organized religion’s suppression of satirical criticism both the Catholic Church’s attacks on Bruce and the Muslim attacks on a Danish cartoonist. Lenny Bruce died in 1966 from a drug overdose. “Lenny Bruce…In His Own Words.” Written and directed by Joan Worth & Alan Sacks. Starring Jason Fisher. Zipper Theatre, 336 W. 37 St., Mon - Sat 8pm; Sat 10pm.
Running Time: 1:10. Photo by Doug Kuntz. |
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Consider
that as bad as things are now, they were much worse in the fifties and early
sixties, at least culturally. The revival of Lenny Bruce’s classic act, put
together and directed by Joan Worth & Alan Sacks and acted with great verve by
Jason Fisher, conjures up the time when the Know-Nothings not only ran the
government, but they ran their heavy black pens though the arts.
Bruce
could also be irreverent about Jews. Here’s how Hitler got started. Two MCA
[Music Corporation of America] agents have 72 hours to find a dictator. In a
thick Jewish accent: “Hoo boy, ve are finished. I’m going into personal
management.” They luckily discover Adolf Schikelgrubber painting a house and
make him a deal.
