'Dog Sees God' a radical twist on 'Peanuts'
2007-02-28
Appealing performances and savvy direction help, but "Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead" at TheatreWorks in New Milford is an example of a potentially clever concept that goes seriously awry. What could have been dark whimsy is lumbered with excessive vulgarity and obvious moralizing.
Playwright Bert V. Royal has taken the playful and innocent kids from the popular comic strip "Peanuts" and updated them to sex, drug and alcohol obsessed teenagers with foul mouths. I should make clear at this point that this play is totally "unauthorized" by the very controlling Charles Schulz organization -- he created "Peanuts" -- and anyone who remembers his hostile reaction when a black actor was included in a revival of the little musical, "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown!" might easily surmise this equally radical show would have him pounding on his coffin lid.
Though the characters are obviously meant to be Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and gang, they have slightly different names here, not to protect the innocent, but to avoid a lawsuit.
As a sometime cynic, I have always found "happily ever after" an unrealistic premise, so I have no problem accepting radical alterations in characters we once believed would never change. Schulz's comic strip charmers were always droll beyond their years and part of the fun in following their adventures was how much they mirrored adult behavior. And wouldn't they eventually become adults?
But "Dog" wants to eat its cake and have it to -- to shock us with the rough language -- (no youngsters for this show, please!) and yet to charm us with the fading visages of the characters' universal naivety. In the 90 minutes of the show we're asked to be touched with emotion, rocked back by unbridled vulgarity (feces on the barbecue!), and sent home with a sampler like dose of morality.
If one could pick and choose, there are several scenes which are quite touching and effective, especially CB's farewell to his favorite pooch and the irrepressible honesty of the moments when he and Beethoven find themselves unable to control or understand their feelings toward one another.
Director Susan Pettibone has assembled a cast of talented young performers who give the show the spark it needs to see us through the murk. Ben Grinberg is excellent as the emotionally vulnerable CB, as is Joe Russo as Beethoven, the pianist loner who isn't quite sure of his sexuality.
When CB asks him if he is gay, he replies, "I don't know. I've never had sex, so it would be hard for me to say at this point."
Scenes in which the play tries to recapture the delightful silliness of the comic strip are often forced. Despite some lovely dead pan playing early on, Devon Caraway McCorkle as CB's sister isn't able to make her morphing into a platypus as funny as it probably would have been in line drawings.
Keilly Gillen McQuail and Samantha Tuozzolo are hilarious as two slutty cheerleaders who spike their cafeteria drinks and discuss lesbianism and Salisbury steak in the same mouthful.
Joe Morris is fine and feisty as the least likeable character, the homophobic Matt. He softens enough to suggest that behind his anger are feelings he can't comprehend. John Stegmaier gives new meaning to the lexicon of "stoned," and Margaret Ann King contributes a zany bit as his sister, a pyromaniac who kind of likes being locked up.
Had the playwright had more confidence in the humanity of his characters perhaps he could have written a play that explored more about growing up than falling down.
When the plays turns melodramatic and into a lecture on the wrongs and dangers of bullying prejudice (images of school shootings are easy to summon up) all one can think is: Good Grief! Has it come to that?