A whole lot of bong water has handed beneath the bridge since “Reefer Madness: The Musical” first premiered on the Hudson Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd. in 1998. Like, legalization of the demon weed in most states… plus, about 1,000,000 extra camp musicals which have come down the pike since then, perhaps lessening any apparent must convey again a present satirizing long-bygone pot paranoia. Luckily, although, the passage of a quarter-century has not carried out something to decrease what a kick “Reefer” may be, at the very least when introduced in a revival as knowledgeable because the one now being pushed on the Whitley on Hollywood Blvd.
You assuredly don’t have to be a dope fiend, and even somebody who’s ever celebrated 4/20 as a nationwide vacation, to really feel like your perspective on the size of the room is shifting somewhat over the course of the present. That’s not a hemp-fueled phantasm — it’s only a realization of how a lot Broadway-level singing and dancing has been deliriously packed right into a quite small area. Earlier on this century, the Whitley was a house-music dance membership known as the King King, earlier than turning legit for this manufacturing. Even with tables and chairs taking on the ground, although, there could not really be a lot much less dancing happening, because of a solid of a couple of dozen that’s incessantly executing some leggy excessive kicks within the aisles. If actually shut proximity to pleasant choreography is your drug of selection, this can be the present for you.
Be forewarned, or pre-assured: a few of that hoofing might be swing dancing, or jitterbugging, or tapping. The present is in fact set within the Nineteen Thirties, a la just like the weed-whacking 1936 movie that of the identical title that turned a cult basic on the midnight film circuit within the ‘70s. Ultimately the costuming and dancing change into ludicrously anachronistic, and a number one girl who’s Lindy-hopping within the preliminary scenes will inevitably find yourself bumping and grinding in up to date bondage gear by the point all is alleged, carried out and smoked. The sheer number of dancing types is a part of the enjoyable. The director, Spencer Liff, was initially pegged to simply function choreographer, again when this up to date model of the present was being workshopped in New York previous to the pandemic. Usually, having the dance captain bumped as much as do double-duty may be trigger for somewhat hesitation, however giving Liff (“Head Over Heels,” “So You Assume You Can Dance”) the reins has resulted in as giddy a therapy as this materials goes to get.
The storyline stays so simple as the film’s: Boy meets woman; boy meets blunt (and finally woman does too); damnation ensues for the couple in addition to the denizens of the drug den that ensnares them. Clearly all the things is so over-the-top that it received’t be vastly detrimental to this mainly cartoonish present if you happen to don’t get too emotionally invested within the two “romantic leads.” However doggone it if Darcy Rose Byrnes isn’t so winsome as Mary Lane that I didn’t discover myself getting offended at Anthony Norman, who performs the all-too-corruptible Jimmy Harper, for betraying her adoration. Byrnes is an actual songbird, and actually wide-eyed in her innocence — half Mary Pickford, half Jeannette McDonald. (Ultimately, she’s type of a hopped-up Bettie Web page, too.) Kristen Bell performed this function off-Broadway in 2001, pre-TV fame, and went on to do the Showtime film model a couple of years later, and he or she’s on board as one of many revival’s producers. Bell filmed a promo spot the place she mentioned that Byrnes is best within the function than she was, and also you by no means need to be within the place of telling somebody saying that that they’re proper. However Byrnes feels born to promote the naivete and forlornless of her character’s “Lonely Pew,” with some soprano heft.
Casting is great throughout the board, all the best way to the final swing ensemble members (all of whom cycle by way more costume modifications than you’d assume attainable for a present with this huge a solid and this restricted a backstage). As Jimmy, the chief pushover, Jimmy, Norman makes for a sympathetic sufficient nincompoop. Thomas Dekker has as a lot enjoyable as anybody within the present, as Ralph Wiley, who preceded Jimmy as a sufferer initiated into the drug den, though he was a university boy when he succumbed. The visible gag about Ralph is that he continues to wears a letterman jacket all through the present, as if he’d succumbed to medicine so rapidly sooner or later prior to now, he by no means had an opportunity to take it off, although he’s now about as twitchy and servile an assistant to the villain as Dracula’s Renfield.
The 2 molls of the weed home, J. Elaine Marcos and Nicole Parker, each know easy methods to do negligee-clad degradation — with Parker (“Mad TV,” Elphaba within the “Depraved” nationwide tour) getting a standout quantity early on with “The Stuff,” a wry ode to the pull of habit. (Her Mae character lastly will get over being conflicted in time to drag a knife for some Grand Guignol enterprise towards the climax.) The MVP amongst performers right here is Bryan Daniel Porter, who does triple obligation because the narrator, Jesus, and Jack, the slick drug lord. Within the 2005 Showtime adaptation, Alan Cumming was the narrator (and he’s a producer on this manufacturing, however it makes extra sense to have it performed by somebody who actually seems like a sq. and a scold. Porter is unquestionably going for incongruity, although, when he performs Jesus in about the identical swinging however stolidly dismissive method you’d anticipate Phil Hartman may need.
The unique lyricist, Kevin Murphy, and music author, Dan Studley, who collaborated on the e-book, have carried out nonetheless extra recent work on this manufacturing, which piles tweak upon tweak whereas preserving the unique comedic ethos laid down within the late ‘90s. The most important change is a streamlining that sees it condensed from a two-act present to an intermission-less 90 minutes, which seems like precisely the appropriate size and frantic tempo, even when a couple of gems received sacrificed within the nip-and-tuck. It most likely wouldn’t have damage if the writers or Liff had reduce “Hearken to Jesus, Jimmy,” which isn’t all that hilarious and looks like a residual of an period when the present may coast much more on sheer naughtiness. But it surely’s additionally simple to think about how upset some “Reefer” cultists may be if Christ didn’t make his customary cameo.
“Reefer Insanity” is a popourri of musical types, and it’s simply as a lot enjoyable within the early, harmless going — with “Romeo and Juliet” and “Down on the Ol’ 5 and Dime” — as it’s when all the things will get venal. (Or at the very least you’ll assume so, perhaps, if you happen to ever cherished “Dammit Janet” as a lot as the remainder of “Rocky Horror.”) By the point blood is spurting nearly an hour and a half later, it’s possible you’ll consider exhibits that got here earlier than (“Little Store of Horrors”) or after (like “Re-Animator: The Musical,” or “Heathers: The Musical,” which Murphy additionally co-wrote, and which is sorely due for a correct L.A. replica). But when by now there are methods during which the wickedness of “Reefer” feels pretty acquainted, that doesn’t actually doesn’t dampen how effectively this manufacturing delivers a mix of frolic, mayhem and show-biz razzle-dazzle.
Is there a message to the “Insanity”? After all there’s, though fortunately there’s not an excessive amount of heavy-handedness to the script’s inherent homilies about faux information and American authoritarianism not simply being a byproduct of the Nineteen Thirties. If I’m not mistaken, there was additionally a way more delicate message inbuilt, when the narrator talks in regards to the ostensible framing machine for what we’re seeing, as a New Deal-era, WPA-funded mission designed to place actors to work. That apart could land with anybody within the business who involves see the present, who understands simply how helpful it feels on this unsure local weather to see such a proficient solid strut its stuff. That goes additionally for the work of the designers chargeable for the set (Mark A. Dahl), enveloping speakeasy setting (Peter Wafer) and lighting (Matt Richter). Kudos, too, to music director David Lamoureux, who retains the jumpin’ jive alive even because the doomed characters begin to activate, drop out and drop lifeless.
