Review: Reefer Madness, The Musical Gets High Marks in a Giddy Revival

Reefer Madness, The Musical has risen from the grave in the city where it first slayed for over 18 record-breaking months. Director and choreographer Spencer Liff and a stellar cast make this revival at the Reefer Den in Hollywood a winner, delivering an intoxicating high as potent as the original.

The right-wing Lecturer (Bryan Daniel Porter) is dealing propaganda about the devil’s lettuce, marijuana, by way of a morality play about Jimmy Harper (Anthony Norman), a squeaky-clean high school lad, who falls prey to reefer dealer Jack (Porter again) and his stoned friends Mae (Nicole Parker), Ralph (Thomas Dekker), and Sally (J Elaine Marcos). One puff of the stuff and Jimmy sinks into full-blown addiction. He alienates his plucky girlfriend Mary Lane (Darcy Rose Byrnes), cuts school, and sucks down joints all day, becoming a maniac. As one of the original songs cut from this version gleefully asserted, “It all began with a reefer bud! It ends with buckets of human blood!”

Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney’s score is a catchy pastiche of swing and classical Broadway tunes, with a naughty edge. “Romeo & Juliet” perfectly reflects the central couple’s naivete. “Little Mary Sunshine” is a seduction song that is turned on its head once the victim becomes the predator.

Their book drips with irony and mocks the HUAC’s red scare that began in the late 1930s. The wise (and wisecracking) dialogue sends up the morality plays of that period, as well as the dreadful 1936 exploitation film of the same name.

Liff’s direction is breezy and hilarious. He leans into the Grand Guignol with squirting blood, decapitated heads, and sex galore. His choreography is athletic and invigorating to watch. Armed with his statuesque dancers who move meticulously, he creates Broadway-caliber tableaux.

Porter takes over the roles that were previously handled by two actors, so almost the entire show rests on his capable shoulders, and he solidly carries the weight. His Lecturer captures the superciliousness of Orson Welles, his Jack is a perfect embodiment of the lesser ’30s movie gangsters, while both his FDR and Jesus are deliciously camp. Former MadTV star Parker masters the art of the reaction shot and shows off a fantastic voice in her pseudo-ballad “The Stuff.” Marcos inhabits the blowsy ’30s movie molls, and Dekker is delirious as the brain-fried Ralph with bug eyes and an insane laugh. As the two innocent rubes, Norman and Byrnes are perfectly cast, with dynamic singing and dancing chops.

The costumes by Pinwheel Pinwheel are extravagant-looking, from blood-red shimmy fringe dresses and S&M gear to square threads for the kids. Mark A. Dahl’s reefer den is a haunted house of tacky crimson wallpaper and velvet furniture, and appears to be gleefully modeled on Disney’s haunted mansion.

Giggle Sticks Productions’ first venture, Reefer Madness is a slick, professional, and riotous revival of the award-winning original, lovingly reproduced by its creators and original leads. If the company decides to stake their claim within the LA theater community, local audiences should expect a wave of talented theatrical experiences ahead.