Review by Gregory Daurer

Here’s a theatrical production that’s so far Off-Off-Broadway it’s in the “cow town” - albeit, Marijuana Mecca - of Denver, Colorado. Billed as “a New Vaudevillesque Pot Opera,” Reefer Mania! Denver’s Gone to Pot is part musical review, part stirring-of-the-loins entertainment and part celebration of all things cannabis.

It’s currently playing at The Crossroads Theater in the Five Points section (the show runs through July 3), just a stoner’s throw from the medical marijuana dispensary Denver Kush Club and a jam band venue where a whiff or two of cannabinoids have been known to be nasally detected from time to time. A pizzeria even advertises to its munchies-afflicted patrons, “We got Dank Zah!”

This traditional African-American neighborhood is the perfect setting for a musical hailing the reefer songs of the 1930s. You can imagine Cab Calloway - the Snoop Dogg of his day - performing some of the same numbers back then at the nearby Rossonian Hotel and Lounge, one of the only places in town where Calloway would have been able to find lodging, due to the color of his skin.

Terms like “dank” and “chronic”… they’re so, well, late 20th/early 21st century. During the swing band era, marihuana was spelled with an “h” and colloquially referred to by jazz cats as “gage,” “reefer,” “jive,” and, even - get this - “the stuff.” Songs about cannabis were sung and performed by jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman and the “Reefer Man” himself, Calloway.

The BurlyCute production begins with Smokey Joe, a modern-day hippie throwback with long hair and tie-dyed t-shirt, making his way to a dispensary. With a wink, he pulls out his doctor’s recommendation. A caregiver in white lab coat looks over the legitimacy of the ’script, then abruptly circles her thumb over fingertips in the universal hand signal for cash. Smokey Joe pays the piper/caregiver, receives his medicinal herb and promptly heads to his hangout where he pulls bong hits. It must be some kinda doo-wacka-doo sativa, because hallucinatory sights and sounds unfold before his sunglasses-covered eyes, as he sinks pleasurably into his couch like a Partnership for a Drug Free America commercial’s standard depiction of a loser-stoner.

A plethora of visual gags follow: Dancing pot leaves and brownies. Two ladies roll a huge joint out of lettuce and then comically trade tongue kisses while sealing up the monster spliff. Empty Baggies accompany “All the Jive is Gone.” A cat-costumed dancer “brings the jive.” Others in cockroach costumes sway to the beat of “La Cucaracha” (the traditional Mexican song that mentions marihuana) and then perform a “cockroach burlesque number.” In a paean to the munchies, a tin of Spam, Chinese to-go box and side of fries hoof along to the music. During “Reefer Man” (“Have you ever seen that funny reefer man?”), a ventriloquist’s dummy, callled “DEA,” is used as a prop. Interspersed between the performances are video clips from the 1936 scare-film Reefer Madness depicting the loopy antics of the criminally and insanely stoned.

More often than not, the songs are belted out by the buxom - and bountiful - Reyna Von Vett, dubbed Mary Jane. (She gets to wear the opera-cliche Viking helmet, in a nod to her function.) And she’s got pipes, in addition to other assets. Musical director and pianist David Nehl of the Arvada Center arranges the numbers with verve, resurrecting culturally-significant stoner hits. WATCH CLIP BELOW

The troupe (above) - including the versatile Petra Puse (The Cat), Sithea LaFee (Ice Princess), Frangelica Love (Kaya) and Sarah Bellum (Speed Queen) - play to their strengths, whether it be acting, singing, dancing or revealing their physiques. At times, I felt as gleefully planted in my chair as the Smokey Joe character (played wordlessly - but not senselessly - by Ken Miller), who silently whoops, smirks, gives the thumb’s up and practically drools as he ogles the scantily clad women before him.

Delightfully entertained by Reefer Mania!, I wondered how I might objectively criticize it. After some huffing - but mostly puffing - I found a few angles. For instance, there’s no explicit call for legalization, though it does explore the lies behind prohibition. Nor is there any nod to the truly medicinal benefits of weed - except, maybe, the life-saving munchies it might bestow for cancer and AIDS patients. But one can certainly argue that that isn’t the production’s purpose, any more than it would be in a Cheech & Chong flick.

And while it's subtitled Denver’s Gone to Pot, Reefer Mania! skimps on local history and references. There could have been mention ol’ Moses Baca, who allegedly tried to kill his wife after smoking reefers and wound up convicted in Denver at the first federal trial under the 1937 law that banned marijuana. Or something about the “vipers” who used to sell joints on Larimer Street back in the day.

Also, a theater program listing all the great songs showcased in the production would’ve been handy. Songs like “Jack, I’m Mellow” (“Just smoke some gage, I’m on a rampage / Jack, I’m mellow”), “Killin’ Jive” (“Everything will seem so funny / Darkest days will seem so sunny / When you smoke that killin’ jive”),  “Save the Roach for Me” (“If you’re smoking that jive when I pass by / Save the roach for me”), and the classic alternately known as “If You’re a Viper” and “The Reefer Song” (“Dreamed about a reefer five feet long… You’ll be high, but not for long / If you’re a viper”).

“Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-hi,” the pencil-thin mustached Cab Calloway might have concluded after witnessing these swinging songs brought back to life in Reefer Mania!

Additional reading: Songs of the Vipers: Notes on the “Grass” Roots of Jazz

Gregory Daurer is a Denver-based freelance writer, photographer, novelist and singer-songwriter (a.k.a. Gregory Ego)

Also see:
More CelebStoner Reviews
CelebStoner Movies
CelebStoner News
High Tunes