On Mar. 15th, I peered through the bannister on the attic stairs of Renegade Theater’s studio space, feeling like a child past my bedtime watching something I wasn’t supposed to see as the cast rehearsed “Reefer Madness: The Musical,” opening at the Vets Hall April 3 and closing April 20 (4/20, natch).
First opening in Los Angeles in 1998 before moving off-Broadway, it’s the story of Jimmy Harper, “a fine upstanding American boy,” falling in love with Mary Lane, “a healthy young miss of good American breeding stock,” but he gets duped into drug den dance lessons to impress her and ends up in a love triangle with Mary Jane. Murder and mayhem ensue.
It’s based on the eponymous anti-marijuana propaganda film from 1936 that aged like fine milk into a cheesy so-bad-it ’s-good watch for subsequent stoned generations. The long PSA is bent through a square prism by narcs with either a lack of imagination or too much of it. The musical, however, brims with the latter.
Sacred cows are not just slaughtered, but cremated and packed into a bowl. Jesus Himself enters a scene after he “heard a lamb had strayed” to personally implore our wayward hero to stop smoking weed because his brain “has turned to marmalade.” Mary sings the horny/mournful “(Fill My) Lonely Pew.” If there was an opportunity to construct an absurd rhyme, skewer an outdated social more, or ramp up 1930’s teen slang or hard-boiled dialogue, writers Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney took it. It’s all very toke-toke, wink-wink.
At the “stumble-through” – theater biz lingo for an unpolished first full cast rehearsal – Director Miguel Reyna and Stage Manager Diana Torres-Garcia pitched line tweaks and blocking nudges as producer Gennevie “Q” Herbranson (yes, that’s really her surname) circled. Musical Director Laney Correa manned multiple screens running notation software she’d manually entered the piano conductor score into, allowing her to leapfrog through scratch tracks to slip actors right into a measure – no more need to “take it from the top.”
Actors dressed for the heat in black halters and bicycle shorts knew the songs cold, but dropped dialogue periodically, and there were invisible “Insert Here” brackets everywhere: a dance not yet choreographed; a 1936 Packard prop not built yet; a character exit challenged by the eventual Vets Hall layout.
Lead dancer Donya Derakshandeh plays the “evil sidekick” to narrator The Lecturer, Placard Girl, a cross between a boxing ring girl and a walking thought balloon who helps transition scenes. In the song “Lullaby,” sung by a black market baby, she is supposed to walk through the scene, picketing “REEFER MAKES YOU SELL YOUR BABIES FOR MONEY.” Today, her placard was empty.
Much has been snipped from the 2005 movie version of the musical starring Alan Cumming and a pre-“Frozen” Kristen Bell, likely most audiences’ exposure to the piece. Dialogue segments were condensed and interstitial segments ditched. This bullet train goes song-song-song.
The talent in the room is astounding. Everyone nails their harmonies.
There’s a delightful melodramatic refrain “Reefer madness, reefer madness,” from the Ensemble every time a joint appears, which tenor Tyler Savin, who plays The Lecturer, assured me was from the libretto. M.C. Mendonca, as Mary, does dizzying octave jumps on “Jimmy On The Lam.”
Many of the cast had done siloed rehearsals until then with only their scene partners and directing team, so this was their first time seeing the whole shebang. The energy was loose and infectious. They tried things, like Derakshandeh freezing her leg in a high kick at a song’s grand finale. They erupted in riots of laughter and encouraging applause, like when baritone Ian Grant, who plays dealer-cum-pimp Jack, handily threw an actor over his shoulder to carry them offstage. Or when minor character FDR crashed his wheelchair into a main character squatting on an electric chair.
Call it strange budfellows, but all this madcap behavior is buttressed by heavy themes. Addiction (even if potheads here -as in the 1936 film- are depicted more like methheads). Rape. Teen death. Romantic violence between partners.
That’s where Intimacy Coordinator Babe Payne comes in, also the show’s Dance Choreographer. A self-professed “mom” of theater productions she’s performed in, she wants to protect actors in the way she wasn’t protected, how Hollywood is reckoning with now.
“Apparently, I work on a lot of shows with orgies in them,” she said, laughing.
Payne sees the orgy here as no different than the fight scenes. Both involve engaging actors, aged 18-to-mid-30’s, to know their scene partner’s sensitivities.
“‘Where do you generally not want to be touched?’” she likes to start with. These could be physical pain centers or places that carry emotional resonance. Nuance is carefully carved out, “creating hard or flexible lines where it’s like, this is an ‘absolute no,’ and this is a ‘probably yes.’
Sometimes, the actor knows their limits. Others, are shocked by their own reaction. When this happens, they decide on a “hard stop word.”
“If we haven’t been able to block out a kiss or a hit, just do a nice, spicy high-five.”
Payne empowers actors to self-advocate, like when alto Ana Bogren announced to the room before a vulnerable stunt she wanted no filming or recording. As ‘hooker-with-a-heart-of-fool ’s-gold” Sally, she has to roll off a couch onto the floor, where an amorous character takes advantage and humps her leg. It’s gross and played for laughs, but this is a person, not just an instrument to serve the text.
Soprano Lauren Chouinard, who plays Reefer Den madam, Mae, moonlights as an intimacy coordinator for other shows and works as a hotline advocate for a women’s shelter in town. She felt cared for by the directing team, wary of Mae’s role as Jack’s punching bag.
“When I took the part,” she said, “they called me and were like, ‘Because you work in this world all the time, how comfortable are you doing this kind of fight choreo?’”
Mae’s “redemption arc” sold her, and considering the thunderous applause after her revenge solo involving a sharp garden rake, the cast would agree.
“I did ‘American Psycho’ with Tyler [Sabine] two years ago, so we’re no strangers to fake blood,” she giggled. For the above scene, “I’ll get, like, sprayed every night.”
The Renegade troupe doesn’t just take care of its own, but the community at large, partnering on this show with Last Prisoner Project, a national nonprofit pursuing cannabis social justice reform.
That collaboration attracted tenor Raven Voorhees, who plays Jimmy.
“Art and resistance always get tied together,” he said. “So to actually have tangible donations to a cause, it’s like the best case scenario for me.”
At the end of the stumble-through, Reyna closed with a pep talk to make sure everyone left heartened. Yes, there were warts. Yes, there were a lot of “patchwork rehearsals” to come. But a month and a half in, “We’re where we’re supposed to be right now,” he said.
The original title for Reefer Madness when it came out was “Tell Your Children,” but don’t tell them to come see this musical. It’s adult fun only.
Instead, tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell your budtender.
To get some sticky icky tickets for Reefer Madness or Renegade Theater’s other Spring and Summer offerings, visit onthestage.tickets/renegade-theater-co. Donations during April will be split with Last Prisoner Project.
