BECK CENTER MUSICAL SMOKING WITH LEVITY AND INSANITY

In 1972, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
dug up a 36-year-old movie titled "Reefer Madness" from the Library of
Congress film archives. A cult classic was born.

About five years ago, Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney went back and re
discovered the black- and-white cautionary flick and transformed it
into a stage musical, also called "Reefer Madness," which became
something of an under ground hit in Los Angeles.

It transferred to an off-Broadway theater in 2001 but ran only a
month. There is still plenty of hilarity in "killer weed," however, as
evidenced by the boisterous production that opened over the weekend at
Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.

It's a meta-meta-meta musical.

The original film was meant in earnest, to scare away potential users
of a substance that was then only consumed in this country by jazz
musicians and hep cats.

Narrated by a high school principal as his students succumb to the
allure of the demon weed, the film was supposed to look like a
documentary as it cataloged the crimes that a puff of a joint would
lead to: hit-and-run accidents, rape and murder.

The effect of this hyperbole on the 1970s college crowd, most of them
stoned at hazy midnight screenings, was copious laughter. By the time
"permanent insanity" sets in, it is difficult not to get NORML's point.

The musical's creators could not re-create the grainy, jerky,
black-and-white, government-issue look of the film. But they did take
the film's exaggerations and blow them up bigger, leaving the setting
in the 1930s but adding subsequent cultural references.

The idea, apparently, was to try every gimmick in the book and hope
that some would be funny. At the Beck Center, which previously had a
hit with "Zombie Prom," many of them fortunately are. The over-the-top
title song will haunt all who hear it.

The score ranges from swing-era numbers to faux-ballads, and from dark
jazz to doo-wop. Jesus makes a Las Vegas-style entrance. A "nude"
scene, done in body suits decorated with marijuana leaves, makes fun
of early modern dance. And a barely dressed usherette holds cue cards
that say, "Reefer makes you giggle - for no good reason!"

Good-timing director Scott Spence, music director Larry Goodpaster
(and his rocking band), eclectic choreographer Martin Cespedes and the
13-member cast have a rollicking, loosey-goosey good time in the
Beck's snug Studio Theatre.

Cespedes' "orgy" scene is truly a sight to behold.

Matthew Wright unleashes the soul-saving fury of an evangelist as the
principal, but his vocal forcefulness at Friday's opening made his
microphone malfunction, causing an annoying buzz.

Curtis Young appears, to delightful effect, as both the evil Jack and
as a completely conceited Jesus who says, "Take a hit of God!" Benji
Reid makes a skinny, cute Jimmy, who falls under the devil weed's
spell, and Betsy Kahl uses a lot of va-va-va-voom as Mary.

"Reefer Madness" doesn't hit its campy target as often as, say, "The
Rocky Horror Show" or "The Little Shop of Horrors" (both of which are
more focused musically and narratively).

But even without smoking anything, you'll be hard-pressed not to laugh
loudly and often.

Through Sunday, June 20, at the Beck, 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood.
$15-$22. Call 216-521-2540.