By Lucy Komisar
The story of the New York State “justice” authorities prosecution of Lenny Bruce in 1964 would be surreal if it weren’t for the fact that the iniquity of the officials who attacked him and the courage of his defenders continues apace, most obviously the attack on the free speech of critics of Israel.
Bruce, for those too young to know, was an in-your-face stand-up comic whose routine used a lot of what were then considered “dirty words” and which now are so commonplace they are in the dialogue of just about every sit-com or Broadway play set in current times. I mean MF, and CS, and “shit” – even that was verboten in 1964, a year which people would later see as the cusp of a new cultural era. But Bruce was caught in the crosshairs of anti-communism politics that attacked anyone that challenged anything about the corrupt American system, even words. It was just a decade after McCarthyism.
The play by Susan Charlotte, directed by Antony Marsellis, is largely scripted by the trial transcript, and the actors play his attorney Martin Garbus (Stephen Schnetzer) famous civil libertarian lawyer, now 92, and the prosecutor Richard Kuh (Ian Lithgow), who worked for the infamous Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan. Witnesses for defense include columnist Dorothy Kilgallen (Roberta Wallach) and cartoonist Jules Feiffer (Timothy Doyle, excellent even to his demeanor and his haircut). Charlotte selects the right testimony to tell the story with Marsellis’s crisp direction.
Seeing this play is like taking a course in contemporary jurisprudence. Following the trial text means you go more for the erudition than enjoyment. But while it’s not said in the play, the message I got was that Kuh, Hogan and Herbert Ruhe (Dan Grimaldi), the CIA witness against Lenny Bruce, have been reborn in the president of Columbia University and the “lawyers” of the Justice Department or the cowards of big law firms who don’t think free speech is something they should defend.
The dirty words case would have been a misdemeanor but authorities wanted to get him, which the CIA guy Herbert Ruhe later admits. So, while the words of the routine were not “obscene,” Ruhe lied that he touched his crotch. No confirmation from anyone else. He said, “We picked him out of all the performers. I know he was not obscene…Yet, in a way, I felt he had to be convicted.” Why? I could never get why. It wasn’t about communism. Did they understand that free thinkers would challenge the U.S. imperialist policy sold as anti-communism?
But we know the CIA lies, they admit it. See CIA director Mike Pompeo’s most honest speech he has ever given: “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
Best parts were the testimony of Kilgallen, a conservative columnist for the “Journal American,” who called Bruce a “brilliant satirist” and said his social commentary was important. That the same words had been used by Norman Mailer, James Joyce, Henry Miller.
And the satirical cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer.
The prosecution didn’t like him talking about Las Vegas as “tits and ass.” But everyone knows that’s what Vegas was selling!
An Appeals Court had dropped charges against the novel “Fanny Hill” as obscene. DA Hogan should have dropped the charges against Bruce. But Hogan was corrupt.
Another guy whose name should live in infamy is Judge Thomas Murtagh, who cited cases already repudiated. And an appeals court including Thurgood Marshall in a shameful decision ruled against Bruce.
He was sentenced to four months in jail for a comedy sketch the government didn’t like. It destroyed him. Interesting that 39 years later in 2003 Republican Gov. George Pataki pardoned him. After a petition by cabaret performers. And with a ringing defense of the First Amendment.
This play is important and worth seeing for anyone who wants to understand how the system we see as corrupt now was also corrupt then. They don’t care what anybody says, if your views challenge the system you can face severe punishment, even jail. As Lenny Bruce knew, the times demand courage.
“The People Versus Lenny Bruce.” Written by Susan Charlotte, directed by Antony Marsellis. Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street, NYC. Opened May 16, 2026, closes June 28, 2026.