Maybe being a marijuana comedian (example: Rob Cantrell) is like being a prop comedian. Granted, your prop isn’t visible onstage, unless you count the thumb and forefinger pressed together and drawn to an intense face, evoking someone getting stoned by puffing on a roach. (Get hip with our far-out lingo, squares.) And we love prop comedy: When Gallagher pulled a giant potato chip out of a giant couch in The Maddest, we saw greatness. Plus, being a doobage enthusiast goes a long way in the comedy world, as evidenced by the traveling show The Marijuana-logues, in which Cantrell was an important participant. The name riffs on weed and women (Vagina Monologues, people!), though the material focused primarily on the green stuff — there are plenty of zany gals in blazers out there working the estrogen comedy angle anyway, right? Cantrell has a particularly funny bit, first trotted out in San Francisco, about smoking a joint with a symphony star on a corner in the Lower East Side of New York City: He gets arrested by a couple of plainclothes cops, and hilarity ensues — in retrospect. He may have chosen an altered state instead of an oversized snack food to riff on, but it’s good shit either way. Cantrell is recording a live CD tonight and tomorrow, so laugh loud, whatever your relationship with roaches.
March 17-18, 8 p.m., 2009
