Fertile Ground Diaries: Spectravagasm 8: Drugs

This is your family on bath salts.

Before seeing Spectravagasm 8: Drugs, I had never seen cardboard cutouts of heroin needles, a family on bath salts or a cooking show where you learn to make crack.

PDX Playwrights' newest show, which premiered Friday Jan. 29 at Hipbone Studio, gave me all these visual takeaways. Plus, a candy ring delivered on a tray of green eggs and ham by a girl dressed in a Dr. Suess onesie.

The Spectravagasm series, which is performed regularly by Post5 Theatre's sketch comedy team, has riffed on everything from religion to Halloween, and creator Sam Dinkowitz' latest installment continues the tradition of late-night comedy that favors absurdity, slapstick and song.

This 8th edition was a series of episodes about drugs, everything from the insomnia treatment Belsomra to bath salts, with a few original songs thrown in. The standout skits included a teacher enforcing her students' Adderall intake while telling them that drugs are bad, and a song about dealers titled "I Know A Guy." The parody of an anti-drug commercial was also a stand-out, where all the actors wear all black and walk purposefully while saying things like, "I am a person. And I choose not to do drugs."

Riffing on drugs can get old quickly, but Spectravagasm 8 rarely lagged. The quick-witted and distinct sketches struck the perfect balance between script and improvisation—and you don't have to be high to enjoy it.

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