The truth will set you free. Eventually.
In 1936, a film that came to be known as “Reefer Madness” warned parents that marijuana would lead their children into a world of sex, violence and insanity. It was meant to be taken seriously. That audiences eventually found it hilarious, however, probably wasn’t what its creators had in mind.
The 1994 film “A Man of No Importance,” meanwhile, told a quieter story about a Dublin bus conductor, his amateur theater company and the parts of himself he had learned to keep hidden. Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens brought that story to the stage in 2002.
Both stories have found their way to Long Beach this month. And both have something to say about truth: who gets to tell it, who gets to decide what it is and what happens to the people who are expected to live without it.
Long Beach Landmark Theatre Company’s production of “A Man of No Importance” centers around Alfie Byrne, played tenderly and skillfully by Clayton Nemrow. Alfie loves poetry, Oscar Wilde and putting on plays. He is a bus conductor by occupation, but like many people who spend their evenings in a rehearsal room, his job is what he does until he can get back to the theater.
His latest undertaking is Wilde’s “Salome.” Perhaps an ambitious choice for an amateur company performing in a Catholic church hall in 1964 Dublin. Alfie, however, sees the beauty in the piece and wants to share it.
There is quite a bit Alfie would like to share. He just doesn’t know how much of it the people around him are willing to receive.
Alfie is gay. He has built a life around keeping that fact out of the conversation. He can speak passionately about art, rehearse other people’s words and imagine conversations with Oscar Wilde — but speaking plainly about himself is another matter.
It is easy, from the safety of an audience seat, to wish he would simply tell everyone. We know who he is. We like him. Surely, the people who love him will understand.
Of course, the possibility that they won’t is what has kept him quiet.
Landmark serves the material well with a solid cast whose strong ensemble performance gives us a community worth caring about. That is particularly important in this piece. We need to understand why Alfie wants to belong to these people, even when belonging means leaving some of himself outside.
Directed by Megan O’Toole, with music direction by Curtis Heard, the production finds its heart in that shared humanity. Flaherty and Ahrens’ score gives these seemingly ordinary lives room to soar without losing the intimacy of the story.
Alfie, of course, wasn’t simply afraid to tell the truth. He was afraid of what people already believed about “his kind.” Other people had told his story before he had a chance to, and they hadn’t been particularly kind in the telling.
Across the Atlantic, a similar willingness to believe the worst about people had helped make marijuana a national menace. Harry Anslinger, a former Prohibition official who, to ensure his job security, became head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, promoted frightening and false stories linking the herb to violence and insanity.
The campaign found a receptive audience in a society already suspicious of the Black Americans and Mexican immigrants stereotypically associated with its use. You didn’t have to know much about the people or the plant. You just had to believe someone who assured you they were dangerous. Which brings us to a gentleman with a presentation
At Long Beach Playhouse, “Reefer Madness” comes with a lecturer, played by Derek Rubiano, who has some “important” and very false information to share with concerned citizens. There is a menace among us. It is coming for the children. He has a theatrical presentation to prove it.
You can probably see where this is going. The pleasure is in just how far it goes.
With music by Dan Studney, lyrics by Kevin Murphy and a book by both, “Reefer Madness” takes the original film’s warnings, and gives them songs, dancing and considerably more enthusiasm than good sense.
Jimmy Harper, played with wild abandon by Teddy Larkin, and Mary Lane, played with explosive cheerfulness by Kacey Oschack, occupy the wholesome end of a world in which one bad decision can apparently introduce you to every vice available before intermission.
The show is silly, sexual, deliberately excessive and intended for adults. Its characters are being led down the road to ruin — and the musical is determined to enjoy every stop.
Under the direction of Rovin Jay, with choreography by Sonya Randall and music direction by Stephen Olear, the Playhouse has assembled a solid cast that takes on the material together. The strong ensemble performance serves a show that needs everyone willing to go along with its considerable foolishness.
Camp requires commitment. There is little use being mildly outrageous. This company understands the assignment.
Beneath all the fun is a fairly ugly little mechanism: Tell people their children are in danger, give them someone to blame and make certain there is no time for questions. Once they are frightened enough, almost anything can be presented as a reasonable response.
The joke becomes a little less distant when you consider how often we still encounter some version of that sales pitch.
Watching these two productions, I kept coming back to the people who are certain they are doing good: Protecting a church. Protecting children. Protecting a community from something they have been told to fear.
Somewhere in all that protecting, it becomes possible to lose sight of the people.
Both productions are enjoyable evenings of theater. One tender and thoughtful, the other gleefully inappropriate. Both give their casts the opportunity to create something together that is larger than any one performance.
And both suggest we might do well to ask a few more questions before deciding what is true about someone else.
Alfie would certainly have appreciated it.
‘A Man of No Importance’
When: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 7 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 1.
Where: First Congregational Church of Long Beach, 241 Cedar Ave.
Cost: $30-60.
Information: lblandmark.org.
‘Reefer Madness’
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 15.
Where: Long Beach Playhouse’s Studio Theater, 5021 E. Anaheim St.
Cost: Tickets vary.
Information: lbplayhouse.org.