Nightlife: On Stage: 'Reefer Madness' is high on bawdy energy

(Editor's Note: An incorrect address was given for Live Girls! when this column was first published.)

As a 1936 alarmist movie, "Reefer Madness" was ridiculously serious. As a contemporary musical comedy, "Reefer Madness" is seriously ridiculous.

Satirists and songwriters Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney made a marvelously entertaining show out of what was a ludicrously demagogic pseudo-documentary. The screen-to-stage reincarnation isn't as stupendous as such Broadway productions as "Hairspray" or "The Producers." But as a big show for small theaters, "Reefer Madness" is sensational.

Live Girls!, a small theater in Ballard, is housing a wonderfully bawdy production of "Reefer Madness." Backed by a five-member band, a cast of 17 singers/dancers/actors take us through a jagged tale of innocence and degradation. What the performers lack in subtlety they more than make up in energy. Indeed, subtlety would be conspicuously out of place in "Reefer Madness."

The story centers on Jimmy Harper, a wholesome teenager. Jimmy is smart and athletic. But he's a little bit diffident about his social skills. When Jack, the local marijuana dealer, sees Jimmy's hesitation at the edge of the dance floor, he attacks.

Jimmy enters a milieu familiar to (as a narrator informs us) communists, socialists, jazz musicians, race mixers, rapists, perverts, criminals and Democrats. With our own eyes we see how a weed-besotted Jimmy blows off a 4-H Club tree planting. From there it is only a short step to incest and other forms of unspeakable sexual depravity. In a matter of minutes, Jimmy has proceeded to theft, vehicular homicide, displeasing Jesus, consorting with the devil and missing the high school prom.

At least, despite pathological hunger attacks, Jimmy does not resort to cannibalism. But he has a "friend," Ralph, who crosses even that line.

As Jimmy, Ryan McCabe, is a sort of Donny Osmond as you've always wanted to see him: one minute squeaky clean, the next up to his naked nipples in enthusiastic depravity. Heather Gautschi plays Jimmy's high school sweetheart as a sort of Annette Funicello as you've always wanted to see her: one minute all perky virtue, the next ... oh! There's no decent name for it. Leather is involved.

Director Kate Jaeger, choreographer Hailey Hays and costume coordinator Laura Lindle are excellent with the razzle-dazzle factor. Some bits of frenzy go on too long. But the actors create sharp little comic vignettes -- notably Jaeger as an addict who finally breaks free from marijuana slavery and Luke S. Walker as a charismatic Jesus who is better at working the crowd than he is at wresting Jimmy from Satan's lecherous grasp.

"Reefer Madness: The Musical" runs at Live Girls!, 2220 N.W. Market St., through March 22. Tickets: $20, discounts for groups of 10 or more; 347-752-3068 or reefermadnessseattle.com.

No joking aside

Good jokes: 32 percent. OK jokes: 27 percent. Lame jokes: 31 percent. Wretched jokes: 10 percent. Other: 0 percent.

That's right; there is no "other." The Seattle Repertory Theatre's production of "The Imaginary Invalid" is all jokes, all the time. Director David Schweizer puts on a lively, colorful show. It's not as funny as it tries to be, but, still, it's plenty funny.

The good jokes are largely a matter of acting. The actors clown shamelessly -- which is the way effective clowning has to be done.

Zoe Winters, as the sweet young thing, does not shrink for loony rage and wacky lust. The rage happens when the lust is thwarted. This is Juliet unbound.

The lust target is Andrew William Smith. He is the sweet young thing, male division. He portrays the ludicrous adolescent excesses that Romeo would have been prey to were Romeo not so busy reciting fancy poetry.

Moliere's 1673 satirical farce is about a hypochondriac and his family and his health care providers. Winters' character, Angelique, is the central character's daughter. Wouldn't it be great if Angelique would marry a physician, so her father could have live-in, round-the-clock medical attention?

Angelique thinks not. Smith plays a super cute guy she met at a theater. He's no doctor, but he sure cures what ails Angelique.

Julie Briskman is hilarious as Angelique's evil stepmother. How evil? Every time she is mentioned there's a roll of ominous thunder. Stepmom's lover, a notary played with limitless sleaze by Bradford Farwell, is an eager accessory in a scheme to cheat both Angelique and her father.

Rocco Sisto plays the father, a character who is devoted mostly to hysterical fretting. Bringing variety to monomania is not easy, but Sisto does a pretty good job with distress that ranges from mournful to frenzied.

Other admirable performers: Ian Bell as a medical student whose mannerisms reflect the influence of chickens on his early development; Alice Playten as the saucy truth-telling servant without whom no Moliere play would be complete; David Pichette as a fussy and exploitative physician, and Brandon Whitehead as a temperamental apothecary who demonstrates that hell hath no fury like a practitioner whose enema bag is spurned.

So much for the good jokes -- essentially the contribution of good actors.

Cheeky scenery, costumes and music (Riccardo Hernandez, David Woolard and Eyvind Kang, respectively) constitute OK jokes. Also OK are the play by Moliere and the recent adaptation by Constance Congdon. Congdon gets unexpected fun out of the invalid's connoisseur analyses of flatulence odors. With his talk of undertones and overtones and hints of this and that, he sounds like a wine or coffee snob.

The lame jokes result from dull repetitions. Nearly every bit of jolly shtick is driven into the ground sooner or later.

Outstanding examples of wretched material are the silly little operettas at the beginning and the end of the show. They strain for laughs. And, of course, nothing is less amusing than a struggle to be amusing.

"The Imaginary Invalid" runs through March 22 at Seattle Rep, Seattle Center. Tickets: $15-$59, 25-under $10; 206-443- 2222, 877-900-9285, seattlerep.org.

An unsteady romance

Balagan Theatre's production of "Romeo and Juliet" does all right by Shakespeare's version of adolescent romance. The production's comic interludes, however, are unreliable. And the tragic moments are completely weak.

Banton Foster and Allison Strickland, in the title roles, are good with infatuation. He has a soft but resonant voice -- urgent and sexy and innocent all at once. She has giddy, girlish mannerisms that give way to womanly passion.

Romeo and Juliet were born into families that hate one another out of habit (no one offers any explanation for the homicidal excesses). When the offspring of these warring tribes, Romeo and Juliet, meet at a masquerade party, it's instant infatuation. Which is nice while it lasts. Which is not very long.

When suffering sets in, Foster and Strickland make do with unpersuasive emoting. The rest of the large cast is not much better at tragedy. There's a lot of ranting.

With a couple of exceptions, the play's bits of comic relief don't fare much better than the storms of rage and sorrow. Rebecca M. Davis as Juliet's maid and Curtis Eastwood as her father, however, both earn some laughs. They portray people whose self-importance can come off as a joke if skillfully handled. Eastwood and Davis handle it with skill.

"Romeo and Juliet" runs at Balagan Theatre, 1117 E. Pike St., through March 22. Tickets: $20, $15 online, students, seniors and military $12 online, $15 at door; BalaganTheatre.org or 800-838- 3006.