THEATER REVIEW : Twisted, Funny Visions of Reality in ‘Pot Mom’

Has Orson Welles been reincarnated as Justin Tanner? Such psychedelic questions hover like hallucinations above Tanner’s hilariously dysfunctional “Pot Mom” at the Cast Theatre. The twentysomething playwright-director’s ninth play is a stoned parody of contemporary California suburbia that explores the blurred boundaries between television fantasy and daily reality.

“Pot Mom” rhymes with “sitcom” for a reason. Marijuana smoking becomes a sly, hip comment on the genre distorting American experience like pot distorts perception. Tanner’s generation is neither X nor baby buster nor grunge--it’s bemused. No accident that wunderkind Tanner is currently adapting “Dazed and Confused,” the cult film about 1970s teen-age Angst , for the USA Network.

Nor is it an accident that the play begins with the soundtrack of an “I Love Lucy” rerun in a typical network series living room. If Lucy were modeled to today’s housewife, then she’d probably resemble non -working-class mother Patty (Ellen Ratner). This mother barely copes, while constantly smoking joints and trying to decide who to kick out--her grown-up kids or her lover. But with the end of unemployment, can Patty risk losing her boyfriend Richard’s (Jon Palmer) steady income from driving produce trucks?

More significant, Richard has a greenhouse in the back yard that’s a jungle of marijuana. Without the promise of such green grass, Patty might self-destruct. So she leans on her best friend and neighbor, Michelle (Elizabeth Ruscio), a contemporary Ethel Mertz. Stoned and munching on cold Pop Tarts (the toaster broke), mellow Michelle conceives her own plan: “I’m gonna get rid of that jerk that’s been living with me .”

Patty’s son Troy (French Stewart) works part time at the mall’s 4-Plex cinemas: “Yes, I’m an usher, but I want to direct.” Jealous sisters Lisa (Laurel Green) and Lorraine (Dana Schwartz) only stop feuding while scheming to drive their mother’s control-freak boyfriend out of the house. Wanna-be rockers Gene (Gill Gayle) and Nick (Jon Amirkhan) roll into the living room like lost extras from “Laverne & Shirley,” needing fuel before competing in the annual “Battle of the Bands.”

*

Tanner directs his ensemble with seamless naturalism, shrewdly allowing over-the-top farcical incidents to be heard off-stage but not seen. The gifted cast delivers the marvelously funny dialogue with delirious docudrama timing. Especially noteworthy are Ruscio’s tour-de-force disintegration and Ratner’s ditsy Mother Courage, whose teamwork deserves future drama awards.

But don’t expect Welles’ film noir classic “Touch of Evil.” Tanner isn’t drilling for deep meaning in “Pot Mom.” Conflicts get manufactured and resolved in the arbitrary manner of sitcoms. There’s more breadth than depth, yet it’s brilliantly shallow. Tanner still hasn’t come of age as a playwright, and the best is yet to come from this gifted, consummate youth of the theater.

* “Pot Mom,” Cast Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends May 15. $15. (213) 462-0265. Running time: 2 hours.