Playwright: Bert B. Royal. At: Rubicon Theatre Project at Oracle Productions, 3809 N. Broadway. Phone: 773-466-1835; $10-$20. Runs through: Dec. 15
If defenders of wholesome children's entertainment ever saw Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, they would have a fit. Now receiving its Chicago premiere by Rubicon Theatre Project, Dog Sees God is playwright Bert B. Royal's 2004 unofficial and sometimes shocking spoof of Charles M. Schultz's Peanuts.
What Royal controversially does to those beloved round-headed comic strip-kids is to show them as teenagers. But instead of a peppy spoofing like the Broadway musical Avenue Q's take on PBS kid show Sesame Street, Dog Sees God shows a future of angst and hurt for the Charlie Brown gang coping with drugs, violence and budding sexuality.
Dog Sees God begins when C.B. ( read Charlie Brown ) throws a funeral for his beloved beagle who died of rabies. Since C.B.'s fad-switching sister ( Michele Gross as the Sally character ) was the only guest, C.B. then goes about asking his friends for their opinions on mortality and an afterlife in Peanuts-style vignettes. The questioning also spurs C.B. to examine his own notions of self.
One thing to commend Royal for is not going the easy spoof route. No, Peppermint Patty and Marcie ( Colleen E. Miller as Tricia and Anna Schutz as Marcy here ) are not sport-loving lesbians, but popular girls dishing out oodles of contempt. Characters change like Pig Pen ( George Remus as Matt here ) who has grown into an aggressive jock while level-headed Linus ( Van here humorously played by Jacob A. Ware ) becomes a spacey pot head. The crabby nature of Lucy ( sarcastically played by Liz Hoffman as Van's sister ) explains why she is incarcerated, but most surprising of all is how C.B. can become a hanger-on in the popular crowd despite perpetual childhood failures.
Where Dog Sees God takes a poignant and serious turn is when C.B. rekindles a friendship with Beethoven ( Michael Rashid playing Schroeder from the strip ) , now a ruthlessly taunted outcast attacked as the school 'faggot.' The friendship turns romantic and tests C.B.'s friends' thinking and spurs a tragic ending.
Rubicon's simple production under Ron Popp's strong direction features a comic cast that gets the nastiness and aimlessness of teenagers just right, plus the sometimes existential pondering and silly dance styles of the original Peanuts gang. Chris Kordys' C.B. is the emotional and honest heart of the production, particularly when he digs into a growing well of grief.
Dog Sees God may be sacrilege for some, but Royal's smart and funny Peanuts imaginings continue on in the spirit of Schultz's work. Though Charlie Brown and friends didn't age much throughout their decades on newspaper funny pages, their doubts, fears and diffident neuroses were definitely grown-up—a reflection on Schultz's own depressed nature now being controversially examined in book and TV biographies. Royal's Peanuts parodying may be ruthless at times, but it's done with genuine love and affection.
