The Reefer Den at the Whitley
"Creeping like a Communist! It’s knocking at our doors! / Turning all our children into hooligans and whores!"
It’s a dire warning received when entering the newly created Whitley Theatre, the imaginative new incarnation of the many-times reinvented old King King Nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard, when you arrive to hear a lecture about the evils of that new scourge threatening the children of America. You know, that demon weed called marijuana—which one of the participants in a conspiratorial and somewhat disgusted tone reminds us is a “Mexican” word.
As the lecturer (a stone-faced Bryan Daniel Porter) sermonizes about the new drug’s destructive and soul-crushing properties, his eager ensemble of equally concerned cohorts helps deliver his stern message of evil and avarice by recreating a recent incident of a real life ruination: the downfall of decent young suitably geewillikersy teenager Jimmy Harper (Anthony Norman) at the hands of a smarmy true monster named Jack (also played by Porter).
The time is 1937, folks, and the place is the Good Ol’ USA in this smashing revival of Reefer Madness: the Musical, produced by the 2005 film version’s stars Christian Campbell, Kristen Bell, and Alan Cummings, as well as the film’s original director Andy Fickmam, its bookwriter/composers Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney, Campbell’s producing partner/wife America Olivo, and executive producer Wendy Parker.
It might seem like a major risk, presenting this elaborate recreation of a cult icon during our current crisis attempting to restore live theatre back from the depths of audience apathy after being crushed by the pandemic, especially when the spoils have to be shared by so many creators, but I doubt if financial gain was the main goal this dedicated group of artists thought about when they decided to bring it back. Still, considering how spectacularly and inventively Reefer Madness has returned to the town where it modestly began 25 years ago, in a fair world this production could play on to packed houses in the newly renamed Reefer Den for a long time to come.
That original production, which played right down the street at the tiny Hudson Theatre on Santa Monica Boulevard, was also directed by Fickman and starred Campbell, launching their careers in the nicest way possible. It went on to snag seven LA Drama Critics Circle Awards for 1999, for Best Production, Direction, Score, Choreography (by a 28-year-old Michael Goorjian, no less), Musical Direction, Sound Design, and a well-deserved Leading Performance Award for Campbell, who was also honored as Best Actor in a Musical from my own annual TicketHolder Awards.
Of course, the source of the musical spoof was another cult classic, the outrageously bad 1936 dead-serious instructional film Tell Your Children!, a project financed by a church group intending it to be shown to god-fearing Christian parents as a tool to teach them about the dangers of cannabis use..
Soon after it was produced, however, and realizing quickly how unintentionally funny it was, it was purchased by producer Dwain Esper and re-cut to be distributed on the exploitation film circuit, its horrifically bad filmmaking and acting, as well as its inherent randiness and vulgarity, escaping censorship under the guise of offering valuable moral guidance.
It was rediscovered again in the late 60s and enjoyed a copious new resurrection from my generation, who had another reaction to its message—one I remember personally quite vividly as my partner Victor and I sat in the living room of Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson watching a screening of the film unfold through a thick smoky haze while tripping on two tabs of Clear Light.
What this all-new take brings to this rich history is everything that conspired to make it fresh again and to do so in the classiest way possible, especially by hiring the multi-award winning Spencer Liff, two-time Emmy nominee for TV’s So You Think You Can Dance?, to direct and choreograph. His vision, surely fostered by those original participants with such a fond past with the evolution of the musical, is the heart and soul of this production and his ensemble cast is uniformly onboard in the effort.
Both Norman and Porter (who also plays FDR and a Jesus even more irreverent and lots more colorful than on South Park) are exceptional, even when Jimmy’s horrific (comedic) decline into addiction and madness was hampered on opening night by a temperamental headworn microphone that became so problematic the performance had to take a brief little unexpected intermission.
Thomas Dekker is hilarious throughout as Ralph Wiley, the addicted fallen fratboy whose promise as a future nuclear scientist has dissolved into sentences that end with “whoops… it’s gone” and J. Elaine Marcos is comic perfection as the blowsy Sally DeBain, who quiets her ever-howling newborn infant by blowing marijuana smoke into its baby bottle.
Darcy Rose Byrnes is delightful as Jimmy’s love interest Mary Lane, who goes from a potential steady girlfriend in the Andy Hardy tradition to a scantily-clad vixen with a single toke on one of Jack’s funny cigarettes.
Still, of all the principals, Nicole Parker is a true standout as Jack’s once respectable moll Mae Coleman, whose former family home has become her dealer boyfriend’s “den” and center of his operations. Mae’s continuous wailing to reform and clean herself up is thwarted by even a look at one of Jack’s pre-rolls, making her ballad “The Stuff” one of the musical highlights of the show.
The ensemble of wonderfully game dancer/singers could not be better, performing Liff’s incredibly athletic moves throughout the production’s inventive environmental cabaret staging, where arms and legs often slice through the air so close to the heads of patrons seated at nearby tables that one can feel the wind they generate.
May I make a special shoutout to Patrick Ortiz, who stepped in at the performance we saw for dancer Alex Tho and, particularly since he’s not listed in the printed program as one of the swings, presumably learned Tho’s physically demanding track in record time and did an excellent job of making it his own.
The set and interior Reefer Den design by Mark A. Dahl and Peter Wafer is incredibly clever, enhanced by the lighting design by Matt Richter and what could easily become future award-winning costuming by drag clown Pinwheel Pinwheel.
As the action happens all around the patrons seated at those tables, the waitstaff delivering food and drink (including such treats as nachos piled on psychedelic-green tortilla chips and chicken skewers piercing the ceramic heads of Aphrodite and Michelangelo’s David) are forced to gingerly dodge performers rushing from one place to another. There’s continuous chaos happening everywhere one looks and it’s quite impressive that it all happens so seamlessly.
Above everything, however, the true star of the show is once again the infectious score and quick-witted tongue-in-cheek lyrics created by Murphy and Studney, an Emmy-winning feat that stands up in time splendidly and the exceptional contributions of sound designer Charles Glaudini and the venue’s live band led by musical director David Lamoureux enhance that goal immeasurably.
Truly, this return to the hysterical raucousness of Reefer Madness could not be more welcome as our country fights its conservative-led return to what Trump-era Republicants and other naysayers see as the demise of traditional “family values"—and the current over-the-top exaggerations and risqué nature of the musical’s original campiness make it better than ever before, especially since today you don’t have to hide in the corner of the parking lot to indulge illegally in any enhancers to appreciate its slickly produced silliness.