Take a photo of a barcode or cover
honeydewmoon 's review for:
Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
by Bert V. Royal
Perhaps now, in the year 2022, it is easy for me to look at any “gritty reimagining” of a beloved childhood franchise and roll my eyes so far back I see my frontal lobe. Perhaps I am too connected to the simultaneously cherubic and world-weary characters. Perhaps I am a nasty killjoy who doesn’t know good theatre.
With all of these variables, it’s no wonder I didn’t like this play. Or maybe it is. I didn’t need to see Charlie Brown and his friends doing drugs and acting violently homophobic for some reason, but I did see it. I also saw a lot of questions getting asked and, to some degree, answered, but with varying degrees of success.
I will say, CB’s character is consistent and works with what already existed in canon- he is mopey, perseverates desperately on things, and turns to friends for help interpreting the world. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the characters. Tricia and Marcie are complete train wrecks with no depth or purpose beyond showing the audience how fucked up teenagers can be. Van could have a good role, but instead veers hard into borderline predator behavior with all of his lines and ideas existing only as a drawn out weed joke. Matt could have been an original character with how little he even resembles anyone from the original property. The worst, however, is Beethoven.
Beethoven is consistently being talked over by absolutely everyone. He protests to CB that he does not want to be in a relationship, he is confused about his own life, and he spends a good part of the play just asking to be left alone or not hurt… and yet, never gets any of this. He exists to get fucked over and hurt and tortured. If the play wrapped up in a very postmodern way that implied that human suffering is not worth it or that his meaningless suicide didn’t actually represent anything, maybe that would be fine; instead, the author puts it in a pretty little package with the return of CB’s Pen Pal. Actually, it’s all fine, because the dog and the bird and the piano playing boy are all okay and playing piano and singing along with each other- so he’s fine now!
I thought we were trying to stray away from these types of things, considering The Peanuts Do Drugs Now?
Mixed messages, inconsistent tone, overall dull as hell with paper thin characters that exist for seemingly no reason at times. If you can get past the slurs and the homophobia and the trope filled madness that is this play… maybe you’ll find something worthwhile!
With all of these variables, it’s no wonder I didn’t like this play. Or maybe it is. I didn’t need to see Charlie Brown and his friends doing drugs and acting violently homophobic for some reason, but I did see it. I also saw a lot of questions getting asked and, to some degree, answered, but with varying degrees of success.
I will say, CB’s character is consistent and works with what already existed in canon- he is mopey, perseverates desperately on things, and turns to friends for help interpreting the world. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the characters. Tricia and Marcie are complete train wrecks with no depth or purpose beyond showing the audience how fucked up teenagers can be. Van could have a good role, but instead veers hard into borderline predator behavior with all of his lines and ideas existing only as a drawn out weed joke. Matt could have been an original character with how little he even resembles anyone from the original property. The worst, however, is Beethoven.
Beethoven is consistently being talked over by absolutely everyone. He protests to CB that he does not want to be in a relationship, he is confused about his own life, and he spends a good part of the play just asking to be left alone or not hurt… and yet, never gets any of this. He exists to get fucked over and hurt and tortured. If the play wrapped up in a very postmodern way that implied that human suffering is not worth it or that his meaningless suicide didn’t actually represent anything, maybe that would be fine; instead, the author puts it in a pretty little package with the return of CB’s Pen Pal. Actually, it’s all fine, because the dog and the bird and the piano playing boy are all okay and playing piano and singing along with each other- so he’s fine now!
I thought we were trying to stray away from these types of things, considering The Peanuts Do Drugs Now?
Mixed messages, inconsistent tone, overall dull as hell with paper thin characters that exist for seemingly no reason at times. If you can get past the slurs and the homophobia and the trope filled madness that is this play… maybe you’ll find something worthwhile!