"Reefer Madness: The Musical" shrill but full-blooded

Reefer will make you a pathological liar. Reefer will make you laugh at death.

So proclaim two of many signs brandished by a comely, fishnet-stockinged Placard Girl (Sarah Petty) throughout "Reefer Madness: The Musical," the first staged entertainment by Seattle's RK Productions.

You don't remember any Placard Girl in the overwrought, 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film, "Reefer Madness"? Well, there are a few novel additions to the Roosevelt-era cult classic in Dan Studney and Kevin Murphy's shrill but full-blooded, song-and-dance adaptation from 2001.

Among them are potheads who transmogrify into shambling, disfigured "Night of the Living Dead"-like zombies; a lounge-lizard Jesus (Luke S. Walker); and a curvy cop (Gina Russell) in a va-va-voom black dress. Oh, yes: a lot of delirious tunes and some fancy footwork are new, too.

One has to be, um, high on broad parody to get into the campy fun of this exalted "Reefer Madness." Squeezed into the tight space of Ballard's Live Girls Theater, the big, loud comedy's cast of 17 plus musical quintet is as much in the audience's face as a cannabis cloud at a Summer of Love anniversary festival.

Hewing to the original movie's story about the pot-induced degradation of straight-arrow sweethearts Jimmy Harper (Ryan McCabe) and Mary Lane (Heather Gautschi), "The Musical" recaptures all the maniacal laughter, fiendish personality changes and libidinous license the film links to marijuana addiction.

Something about seeing and hearing all that craziness in a small setting, though, underscores a nagging question about the very need for Studney and Murphy's "Musical" concept. If the midnight-screening popularity of the turgid "Reefer Madness" is already a phenomenon of postmodern irony, why do we need "The Musical" to gild the lily?

The unintentionally comic movie (originally called "Tell Your Children" but later doctored by exploitation producer Dwain Esper) is already funny because of its gravely serious exaggerations about grass. "The Musical" makes all the same claims but with tongue firmly in cheek.

By itself, that doesn't give us much bang for the buck, and the broader political implications of a right-wing clampdown on marijuana (They'll be after books next! Then gays!) feel both tacked-on and strained.

That aside, the fiercely energetic cast's razor-sharp attack, led by director Kate Jaeger (who also plays a weed addict), and numerous outrageous (even unspeakable) touches make "Reefer Madness: The Musical" admirably audacious. When an unforgiving, hipster Christ turns up at Jimmy's darkest hour to rub told-you-so salt into the poor kid's psychic wounds, things can't get much more no-holds-barred than that.

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com