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The
Independent 10th August 1999
GONE ARE the eyeliner, the copper
nail varnish, the Judy-Garland-meets-
Richard-Crookback gender-bending outfits and the gentle, amiable
serendipitous style. In their place: a greased Tony Curtis quiff, a
plain white T-shirt and a brave attempt at a fast, rasping Jewish
shtick.
Peter Hall's revival of Julian Barry's 1971 play Lenny casts Eddie
Izzard, the maestro of the improvisatory riff, as Lenny Bruce, the
American stand-up who, with his ground-breaking routines about such
taboo topics as VD and the difficulties of guilt-free masturbation, is
venerated as the godfather of alternative comedy.
"Why do bees make honey? Earwigs don't make chutney" is the
sort of left- field philosophical musing to which Izzard is given. The
questions
Bruce asked were considerably more uncomfortable. As is demonstrated
here, the query, "Are there any niggers in the audience?",
followed by an
appeal for the house lights to go up and a spirited singling out of
"niggers", "yids" and "greaseballs", still
has the capacity to induce unease, regardless of the fact that the
sequence turns into a rather
preachy spiel.
Bruce's brand of gleeful scabrousness and teasing, lewd seduction aren't
naturally part of Izzard's stage persona. An endearing Lenny Bruce -
such as he can't help but give us - seems a bit of a contradiction in
terms: like a serene Woody Allen or amagnanimous Bernard Manning. Of
course, Izzard works the house with enormous skill and performs some of
Bruce's wackier flights of fancy with an infectious sense of elation and
a real intuitive relish for Bruce's characteristic trick of seeing all
ofAmerican life (church, politics and the law) as a corrupt extension of
showbiz.
The darker, driven aspects of the comedian aren't as convincingly drawn.
Izzard's niceness has a sanitising effect on the more confrontational
material. I have problems, too, with the play. Cutting back and forth
between Bruce's developing nightclub act and episodes from his life
(including his marriage to a stripper, his trial on obscenity charges
and his overdose in 1966), Barry's piece runs into the difficulties
often found in plays about the political nature of humour.
Kenneth Tynan concluded a brilliant essay on Bruce by quarrelling with
the portentous idea that the comedian was "the man on America' s
conscience". It would be more in keeping with his spirit, Tynan
quipped,
to call him "the man who went down onAmerica's conscience" .
Lenny fails
to keep faith with that spirit.
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Play by Julian Barry. Directed by
Sir Peter Hall. Set and Costume Design by William Dudley
He was fast,
furious, vulgar and funny and changed the face of comedy forever.
Legendary American comedian, Lenny Bruce was the epitomy of the sixties,
ground-breaking, extremely hip and constantly at odds with authority.
Who else could play this title role other than the comedy star, Eddie
Izzard.
`Of all the comedians I've
seen over the years, he is the closest there is to Lenny Bruce in the
way he works.'
(Julian Barry, writer of Lenny)
The decision by the director Sir Peter Hall and the writer Julian
Barry to cast Eddie Izzard as Lenny is inspired. Based on the life and
words of Lenny Bruce, Barry's play was last produced for the stage here
in 1975, and became the Bob Fosse film withDustin Hoffman in the lead.
The writer first encountered Izzard on a video belonging to the
12-year-old daughter of a friend, and called Hall immediately.
The name of Lenny Bruce may not bring audiences to the West End, but
Izzard will, even though in the past his acting has been less noteworthy
than his comedy. Certainly, with his film roles this is a reflection
more of the slimness of the characters, than of his performances: a
villain in the remaindered The Avengers, and a Seventies pop manager in
the risible Ewan McGregor vehicle The Velvet Goldmine. The combination
of his two major skills, and the free-association-style that Izzard has
made his own -just as Bruce did - make him perfect for the part. And
even though this is a scripted play with a cast of eight and a live jazz
band, there has been no effort to restrict him to a script when
re-enacting the routines of the legendary American comic. Who will then
come to the fore - Eddie Izzard the comedian, or the ghost of Lenny
Bruce?
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