Word: nightclub
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...changed since Lenny Bruce last stood on a nightclub stage, and a lot of the change had resulted from Bruce's persistence in saying what he wanted to. Between 1961 and 1964 he was arrested four times for obscenity. The court battles that resulted from the arrests bankrupted him in 1965, ten months before he died with a needle in his arm. To the '70s consciousness, the specific grounds for Bruce's arrests seem absurd. He said words like "shit," "penis," "asshole" and "cocksucker," but he did not do so on television. He didn't cut records, he didn...
...difficult to find any comedian to compare. First of all, Bruce was a nightclub performer, and no other stand-up comedian has received so much attention without making a mark through television, movies or records. Bruce made a name for himself during his court cases; the brouhaha that surrounded his death immortalized him. Most of what the modern public knows about Bruce comes from secondary acounts. The only first-hand records of Bruce's work are his autobiography, a posthumous collection of his material entitled "The Essential Lenny Bruce," and "The Lenny Bruce Performance Film." Although many of his engagements...
...removed from Bruce's as one can imagine. Martin, like Johnny Carson, delivers non-jokes, gags about how his jokes flop, about the ridiculous price of admission, and about how ludicrous the comedian's job is. Lenny Bruce wove his life into the bits he performed for nightclub audiences; Steve Martin (one must assume) leaves his real life behind when he goes onstage to make a fool of himself for the audience's benefit...
WOMEN ARE the center of these three pieces and women are the strength of Nightclub Cantata. This is not women's theatre, however, and the less impressive men fill half the cast and almost half the script. The fault lies mainly with the script, for the male parts are mostly restricted to humorous numbers which belittle but do not develop character. The men fade into the background, unable to fit the roles of strength and love the women desire for them...
...cabaret style that causes Swados so much difficulty also saves her. The weak points fade into the blackouts, while the mood keeps building with each successive piece. The music--calypso, raga, and jazz tunes especially--dull the overly critical senses with their inebriating optimism. You have to smile after Nightclub Cantata. You have a stringer full of speckled trout on a sunny day. Who cares about the big one that got away...