Comedy Act Shows Students That Drug Abuse Is No Joke

Continuation high school students--a mix of teen-age mothers, chronic dropouts, gang members and others who don’t fit in mainstream schools--are continuously bombarded with programs, films and speakers that urge them to stay off drugs and do well in school.

“You get pounded with so many drug programs and presentations that after a while it bounces off,” said one 17-year-old at Phoenix High School, Venice High’s continuation school, who had used cocaine and amphetamines for four years. “Sometimes it takes a shock to make you listen.”

But it’s not always easy to shock a roomful of teen-agers who think they’ve heard everything.

Marina del Rey resident Shelley Bonus, a comedian and former drug abuser, tries to do it with what she calls “dramady,” or comedy to show tragedy.

Bonus, 42, has worked with children for more than 20 years, teaching drama in New York schools and writing educational films for children on social issues. Last year in Los Angeles schools, she began performing an anti-drug routine that includes jokes, monologues and personal testimony about the effects of drug and alcohol addiction.

Bonus’ credits in comedy include a stint as a clown with Circus Vargas and numerous TV and nightclub appearances, including one on “Saturday Night Live.”

She recently volunteered a performance at Phoenix High, where most of the students are considered at risk for drug use.

Bonus, looking ridiculous in a candy-striped dress, huge fish-shaped earrings and a mass of blond curls, stood intimately close to her audience--about half of the school’s 80 students. She warmed them up with a few mother-of-a-teen-age-daughter jokes.

“I bought my daughter the best prom dress in the world,” she said. “It was so beautiful. It had ruffles and lace and everything. But when she got to the prom, someone else had the very same dress--her date.”

Some students laughed, but a few sat stony-faced, seeming to resent yet another former drug addict trying to relate to them.

But as Bonus transformed herself into Bambi Burns, a 16-year-old, drug-addicted Valley Girl, she got their attention.

“Hi, like, my name is like Bambi Burns, OK? And, like, I’m an addict. I’ve been sober for 29 days. Is my hair OK? No, like really, is my hair OK?”

Bonus alternated between humorous, air-headed observations and the unpleasant story of the teen-ager’s addictions. Bambi told of her alcoholic grandmother; her own introduction to alcohol, drinking leftover cocktails at her mother’s dinner parties; and her early drug use, popping “black beauties” to get through algebra class.

As Bonus’ audience alternately snickered and moaned with repulsion, Bambi grew more serious. In tears, she described being raped by “the buffest guy” at a party after unknowingly smoking a PCP-laced joint.

When she got to the part where another teen-age drug addict on a PCP high put her 4-month-old baby into a microwave oven, a couple of the boys giggled nervously. A girl chided them, giving an indication that the story had struck a nerve with at least some of the class.

Then Bonus, wiping tears from her eyes, stepped out of Bambi’s character. “I hope that doesn’t happen to you,” she said.

“The question you have to ask yourself every day is: Are you worth enough to stay sober? The people I tried to be accepted by when I was your age are mostly all dead--and I’m glad I didn’t fit in.”

Bonus told her audience that although Bambi Burns’ story was not her own, it was true.

She described her own 15-year addiction to “everything from heroin to cocaine to Valium,” and said that although she has been sober for several years, “the urges never go away.”

After the performance, several students approached Bonus to tell her about their experiences with drugs and thank her for coming.

“I think she got her message across,” said Lonnie Webster, 19. “That drugs is not good. Drugs is nothing to play around with. That we are the future. People got to take this more seriously.”

One teacher said the comedian had “pushed some buttons” and put the students “in an emotional state.”

Phoenix High Principal Penny Dezen said later that the students had discussed the performance in rap groups and that many had been touched by it.

“You never really know what gets through to the kids,” Dezen said. “We have presentations all the time. She hit real close to home, but she did it in a humorous way.”

Of her “dramady” approach of combining silliness with graphic unpleasantness, Bonus said: “This is not about telling jokes about drugs. This is about using comedy as a tool for reaching people. There’s a clown in front of them, and then all of a sudden there’s water coming out of her eyes.”

Drug addiction, she added, “is a gross problem. There’s nothing glamorous about it.”

Last year, Bonus did her routine for students at Reseda, Alhambra and Mission high schools.

In a rejected application for a six-month cultural grant from the city of Los Angeles to perform in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Bonus included a petition signed by teachers, prinicipals and drug program coordinators from more than 50 junior highs and high schools asking her to perform.

On a voluntary basis, she said, she can perform in schools only when she can afford it.

“I would love to do this full time,” Bonus said, “but I can only do it when I have work.”