Dope Show

The homegrown hit Pot Mom takes another drag.
by Travis Michael Holder

Rating: 5 out of 5 masks

In the welcome return of Justin Tanner’s “homegrown” favorite Pot Mom (now in development by HBO after running just about forever to sold-out crowds at the Cast Theatre here 12 years ago) single mom Patty has been out of work for nine months. She spends her days sitting in front of the TV completely zoning out to old Lucy reruns with her best friend Michelle, eating cold Pop-Tarts and alternating between two worthwhile activities: rolling joints and loading bongs. But Patty’s unemployment compensation has finally run out and her boyfriend’s shoebox stash is so full of seeds it sounds like a Chilean rain stick when tilted to one side.

Both Patty and Michelle (Ellen Ratner and Laurie Metcalf, gratefully reprising their award-winning roles from the original production) are desperately unhappy with their incredibly passionless lumps for boyfriends. Michelle’s candle shop is in the bad part of the mall and Patty’s three teenaged kids are a nightmare, and on top of that she can’t leave the house until she gets her brakes fixed. To put it simply: life sucks. Even the droopy little dreamcatcher on the front door has given up trying to help, but Patty is still determined to enjoy her entertainment center while she still has one.

There’s no one quite like Justin Tanner to be continuously able to create wildly funny, fearlessly offensive comedies that so perfectly chronicle our brazenly mixed up times; years from now, I’m positive his amazingly prolific body of work will still give future generations a laugh about how we lived, especially here on the easily teaseable West Coast. Tanner’s characters scream and rant, get drunk and live through major panic attacks at the drop of a Zig-Zag rolling paper-and nowhere are they more lovably dysfunctional than in his Pot Mom.

Patty’s son Troy (Todd Lowe, who hands-down steals the show as a modernday Keanu Reeves) works at the mall movie theater tearing tickets. “I’m an usher, you know, but I really want to direct,” he admits. But hey, that’s better than pouring the yellow stuff over the popcorn, right? Patty’s daughter Lisa (Victoria Prescott) despises her sister Lorraine (Tate Hanyok), which leads Patty to speculate, “Is it because you’re prettier but she’s smarter?” Ah, a mother’s work is never done. Then there’s her live-in boyfriend Richard (Jonathan Palmer), a truck driver and amateur pot grower who hates all three of the kids and wants to get them out of the house once and for all, a desire the other three have banded together to accomplish in reverse. Just your average, everyday, American household, here; there’s not a single solitary Wally or Beaver Cleaver in sight.

Into the mix comes a slew of other typically Tanner-esque characters, including Lisa’s talentless rock band friends (the very talented Cody Chappel and Guilford Adams who could become the modernday equivalent of Lennie and Squiggy) who’ve figured out how to lift Richard’s padlocked greenhouse to snag his plants and Lorraine’s preppy classmate Carla (Audrey Siegel), the link she needs to get invited into the club frequented only by the school’s upper-class horsy set. When Carla comes for dinner with her all-plastic former beauty pageant mother (Sally Strecker) who stands next to the coffee table, smoothes down her best Gucci luncheon suit, and proceeds to reprise her winning competition rendition of the song “People” (chosen because “that’s everybody, right?”), the you-know-what hits the fan and the result is absolutely hilarious.

Tanner directs his own plays with absolutely manic energy and his cast must be drinking something extra special in their backstage Kool-Aid, because it’s obvious they’d all trust him enough to jump off a cliff at his command. Metcalf clearly relishes spouting Tanner’s constant one-liners, and she is nothing short of extraordinary as Michelle, moving with ease from near catatonia to Troy-induced lust to drunken verbal attacks without missing a toke. Ratner and Palmer are like quintessential Jerry Springer guests, Hanyok and Prescott are finds as the feuding sisters and Lowe’s comic timing is impeccable.

Michelle’s sure that if Patty ever stopped smoking dope, she wouldn’t want to be around to watch her start eating the wallpaper; loyal Tanner audiences, on the other hand, would gladly be there to stir the paste. Even if you’re not a current (or former) pothead, his work will still somehow reflect your own existence, whether you admit it or not. Maybe that’s the wonder of Justin Tanner, proving once again with this revival of his spectacularly wicked Pot Mom that he’s both a layman’s Freud for the new millennium and an equal opportunity offender.   LAA

The Third Stage is located at 2811 Magnolia Blvd., Burbank; for tickets, call (818) 842-4755.