By Andrew MacLeod
Monday Magazine, August 25, 2004

Water is just one of a number of plays in this year's Fringe line-up that draw heavily from the well of news and politics for their material. Joan MacLeod's play The Hope Slide, performed by Vancouver's Terri-Lyn Storey, looks at Doukhobor protests of the 1960s. Scenes from the Subjective Reality, by Vancouver's Point Blank Theatre Company, uses input from people living on the streets and from people working in the sex trade. The Reefer Man is about a Canadian lawyer who wants to just say "yes" to marijuana, despite Canada's antiquated prohibitionary laws.

"The issue of pot prohibition is something that has been of great interest to me since 1996," says perfomer Russell Bennett, who co-wrote the script with Gillian Stevens-Guille. (During their time working together they've become romantically involved, he says.) Bennett made a documentary film for the CBC called Stoned, which followed Victoria-resident Chris Clay's challenge of the country's law against possessing marijuana all the way to the supreme court.

It's an issue Bennett still feels strongly about. He'd like to see the government legalize the drug and regulate it. With Statistics Canada recently reporting that some 41 percent of Canadians admitted to surveyors that they'd tried pot at some point in their lives, there are a lot of people who obviously feel it's a law they're fine with breaking. A lawyer himself, Bennett says it's time to bring the law in step with Canadian society on the issue. "At least the general public's view is let's legalize it, let's decriminalize it."

The federal government is talking about changing the law so that people caught with 15 grams or less would be ticketed and fined, but not taken to court. At the same time, says Bennett, they are planning to make the penalties tougher for people found growing the drug. It's a move he says will entrench trade of the drug further into the black market. "The laws haven't been loosening up around pot. It's a myth."

But how does one turn all that political analysis into art? "Instead of doing a rant I wanted to do a good story," says Bennett. "I believe the hero's journey is the fundamental story of humanity. If you can create a hero's journey with humour, it doesn't become a rant . . . To transform a political issue into a solid piece of theatre you have to add your own personal story as well, your own personal take on things, and give of your heart as well. It's nothing without your heart. I think Gillian and I have added a lot of heart to The Reefer Man, which will touch people in their own lives."

So far, he says, audiences have responded well to his largely-autobiographical play. The Edmonton Journal, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix and CBC Manitoba each recently gave the show four stars. It won Best of the Festival in both Edmonton and Saskatoon, and a couple of shows are being added so people who've been turned away will have another chance.

The good reviews didn't, however, draw in members of Hamilton's vice squad when they came out for opening night in that city. They were checking to see if any trafficking of the weed was going on, he says, but he wishes they'd stayed for the show. "They would get more educated about the issue and perhaps join the association of police chiefs that has said we should at least decriminalize."

He hopes to take The Reefer Man to New York some time in the future, he says. "I think the States really needs to be visited by the Reefer Man."