I built a Monarch with some no name J201s from Smallbear and it works except there is a a strange splatty/ducking effect on the note attack when I play with drive knob set anywhere but absolutely maxed out. Could this be a result of the 201s needing to be biased?
You could try removing R101-10k & putting a 25K trimmer or temporary pot with leads to see if you can dial it in better.
That gives you around 10K in either direction from where you are now.
Put simply the upper fet kinda maintains the power requirements for the lower one which drives the load or does the amplification it's a mu amp arrangement
Have a look at cascode amplifiers
Page 21 of Mr Wamplers book albeit he does use trimmers in the example circuit