By Peter Birnie
Vancouver Sun, September 14, 2004, p.C3

THE REEFER MAN

If you're looking for farce, it's taking place over on Commercial Drive at Da Kine Food and Beverage and Smoke. The Reefer Man is fast and funny, but it's not a joke - this heartfelt plea for some kind of rational approach to the cannabis question is everything a police raid and hypocritical drug laws aren't.

Russell Bennett is a lawyer-turned-actor who takes his legalese and turns it into interesting theatre. Sharp and articulate, he's the antithesis of the stereotypical stoner wasted in a basement - although Bennett's character does indeed have a growing operation going downstairs. Yes, he inhales, but is also a highly motivated gardener who wants to win the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.

A good Jewish boy who inherits his grandmother's home and turns it into a hothouse for pot? Oy! This isn't what they meant by high holidays!

Yes it is, says Bennett. His talents as an actor have him playing the reefer man, his overbearing mother and dead-serious father and a screwball friend, all with confidence. The script he co-wrote with Gillian Stevens-Guille cleverly builds toward a courtroom climax wherein our hero has to defend himself against trafficking charges; he does so with a credible argument that both William Lyon Mackenzie King and Emily Murphy must have been smoking something funny when they separately worked to make marijuana the devil's drug.

As Mayor Da Vinci would say, get a grip.

Festival House, 1398 Cartwright, tonight at 6:30pm, Wednesday at 11:15pm, Thursday at 9:30pm, Saturday at 10:45pm, Sunday at noon.