By Rob Faulkner
The Hamilton Spectator, June 9, 2004 Page G8

Russell Bennett in The Reefer Man: a criminal comedy. Photo by Darren Klimek

As actor Russell Bennett hid behind a curtain in the Blue Angel Studio, pre-show tunes hinted at what he'd unroll on the stage overlooking Gore Park. Illegal Smile by John Prine, with its line about escaping reality. Reefer Man by Cab Calloway, with its crazy pothead protagonist. A clip of hand-drumming. The whole shebong.

We met The Reefer Man as Charlie Kovacs (Bennett) ran onstage in a blur of crow-black lawyers robes. Flustered, the young Jewish lawyer is facing drug charges. So began an attack on pot laws that Bennett rolled into his Fringe Festival play.

It tells of how Charlie's love of pot collides with his family's expectations, and his law career. Bennett, 33, a clean-cut ex-lawyer himself, pulls off a humorous, political tale with the eye of a botanist and the vigour of an activist.

He plays all 25 characters, including prominent anti-drug types Emily Murphy and former Canadian prime minister Mackenzie King (who banned opium after a bad drug trip, according to the play). Well-acted, it's more than a stoner stereotype. It's informed, well-written, funny. A bit blunt with its slant, perhaps, not mainstream in a bring-the-kids sense. But certainly for more than just red-eyed Deadheads.

Co-written by Gillian Stevens-Guille, the play traces Charlie's transition from lawyer to full-time pot farmer. We meet his green "ladies," see his first time being stoned, hear him list dozens of pot plant nicknames. We see Charlie in court, courtroom 420 to be exact, fighting pot prohibition as a costly, unscientific, racism-inspired attack on personal freedom.

Bennett touched on this message in his documentary Stoned: Hemp Nation on Trial aired on CBC Newsworld. The Toronto native-turned-Vancouverite will take the message, sunflower seeds and all, across Canada on the eight-stop Fringe Festival circuit.