Ever wonder what happened to Charles Schulz’s beloved Peanuts gang? All the wild guesses in the world could not equate to what took place on the stage of Corner Playhouse last week. The MU Department of Theatre performed the unauthorized biography of Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead.
I’ll admit, I heard teasers about the play all week from friends, and perhaps I dived a bit further on Wikipedia. MATURE THEMES AND LANGUAGE was screamed by every source. The warnings alone still did not prepare me for the performance.
Imagine these cute little Peanuts characters — Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Sally and the gang — gone bad. There’s sex, drugs, drinking and a bit of guy-on-guy action. It’s Peanuts meets MTV’s Skins. Along with the racy content were a lot of laughs. The talented Ian Matthew Sobule played the Linus-like character named Van. As the epitome of a stoner, Van tries to lend his knowledge to C.B., played by Andrew Rea, about the philosophy of nothingingness and that it is actually a million somethings. When C.B. asks if he’s high, a simple squinty-eyed nod with a silly smirk had the audience cracking up.
Other standout performances include Joseph Burch as Matt (Pigpen’s character) and Christopher Carlson as Beethoven (Schroeder’s character). The two certainly showed how quickly people can change in just a few years.
Through the jokes and suggestive material, there is, after all, a deeper meaning to the play. We see how words can hurt and what consequences they can cause. It’s a typical teenage story with angst-ridden characters, but the familiarity of these characters of how we once knew them truly drives the meaning home.
Be sure to catch any of the MU Department of Theatre’s performances this semester for an undoubtedly good night.