Recalling a Lion at the Royal George

As Ronnie Marmo so skillfully reminds us in his ravishing one-man show, you can pay a very high price for telling uncompromising truths.  Just entering its second extension at the Royal George, I’m Not a Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce takes us back to the 60s and reintroduces us to a man known more for his penchant for profanity than for his ferocious belief in that precious little freedom tucked into the first amendment; the freedom of speech. 

Marmo, who not only plays Bruce but also wrote the script for the performance, beautifully inhabits the spirit of a man who is as much a cultural touchstone as he is an icon. The show’s title, I’m Not a Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce is a direct quote from Mr. Bruce and likely explains precisely how he viewed himself.  Comedy was simply a vehicle for speaking truth. 

Madly ambitious, this production doesn’t hurry as it chronicles the contributions and heroism of a singular individual in its 90-minute format.  Super-sized talent helps it succeed impressively. Marmo’s performance stealthily overwhelms with its honesty and candor; giving the audience a three-dimensional perspective of who this man was when not under the hot lights of a nightclub.  It just as clearly gave us a feel for Lenny Bruce’s bracing talent; essentially canonizing Leonard Alfred Schneider’s exceptionalism.

Adding dynamism to a show that features a single individual is probably as daunting as it sounds.  Comics of course do it all the time through unexpected insights and surprise.  Productions like I’m Not a Comedian, I’m Lenny Bruce have a higher hill to climb.  They drill down to the essence of a person to highlight their uniqueness.  Enlisting the services of a savvy director insures the story moves with compelling energy and sustains curiosity.  Here, Joe Mantegna more than ably insured this look back on Bruce’s life and legacy purred with the power of a Lamborghini and flowed with immaculate ease.  By stitching together delivery, timing and structure to create something as intellectually brawny as it is relaxed and funny, his input helped make I’m Not a Comedian a flat out hit off – Broadway last year and a reason why Chicago audiences can’t seem to get enough of it. 

In addition to the excellence of the project, a lot of that admiration stems from who Lenny Bruce was.  As much as we learn about him through Marmo’s encompassing portrayal, you can’t help but want to know much much more about this complicated, intriguingly intelligent man.  Because of his mother, he grew up around show business.  So It’s not surprising he’d gravitate to it.  Entertainment attracts colorful personalities.  And in many ways, it’s proven to be a haven where conventions are relaxed. Discovering or expressing self can include experimentation.  With drugs.  With sex and sexuality.  The weight of withering judgement doesn’t exist in that world the way it does for most people.  Maybe living in such a universe creates an intolerance for hypocrisy and a heightened appreciation for the inviolability of truth. 

A passion for truth certainly fueled Lenny Bruce.  And the cosmos outside of show business gave him a wealth of material to work with.  Many of the flashpoints he referenced 50 years ago are the same ones that define the culture wars today.  Race, religion, sexuality, immigration. Judicial inequity.  Marmo would often slip into a skit to dramatize how these concepts might go down as comedy during a live Lenny Bruce routine.  Invariably the audience’s effusive laughter at the Royal George would be pouring from faces gleaming with delight.  Sharp, incisive, penetrating truth; in the right hands, can be hilarious.  Bruce did this, ferociously, in a period renowned for its buttoned-down complacency.  It made him dangerous; at least to authority, and landed him in jail multiple times on obscenity charges. As it did here in Chicago.  Two of the guilty verdicts ended up at the Supreme Court.  He proved the truth could be red hot and that nudging the envelope far enough to expose imbalance, contradictions and hypocrisies in our “happy ending culture” can sap one’s spirit as well as bankrupt you through legal fees.  By the time of his tragic death at 41 in 1966 of an unintended drug overdose, San Francisco was the only town he could get a booking. 

The frustration and exhaustion Marmo displayed recounting those years floated in melancholy poignancy because, as history, we knew what was coming.   Ironically, a rare video recording of Bruce’s next to last live concert gave few clues to the toll his one man stand to exercise his first amendment rights exacted.  He looked tired, but the potency of his intellect remained dazzling. As did his humor.

I’m Not a Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce celebrates this unorthodox sage, this Godfather of socially conscious comics who use their platform to do many of the things Mr. Bruce tried to do. 

More than a few people after the show vocally lamented the loss of a Lenny-Bruce-like voice in today’s maelstrom of words.  It’s as if they forgot you don’t need to be a comedian to tell the unvarnished truth.  Lenny Bruce wasn’t. 

I’m Not a Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce

Extended through 2/16/2020

Royal George Theatre

1641 N. Halsted Street

Chicago, IL  60614

312-988-9000

www.theroyalgeorgetheatre.com