It’s hard to resist imaging what some of the most beloved children’s cartoon characters would grow up to be. Who wouldn’t want to see where Tommy and Chuckie from Rugrats ended up in their 20s, or if Dexter would still be fiddling around in his laboratory in high school? But, at the end of the day, we’re often left only with our imaginations, picturing scenes and conversations between our favorite characters that will never be real.
The latest production from Boston College Contemporary Theatre, on the other hand, is not satisfied with keeping the fates of Charles Schulz’s beloved Peanuts characters left confined in the minds of fans. Dog Sees God, “an unauthorized parody” of the Peanuts comic strip and TV specials, sees the eclectic gang of rascals trudging through its high school years, embodying a tone and language that audiences are entirely unaccustomed to seeing them in.
As an unauthorized parody, Dog Sees God is not allowed to feature the actual Peanuts characters. Instead, the characters’ well-known names are replaced with stand-ins. Charlie Brown is CB, Sally is CB’s sister, Linus is Van, Pig Pen is Matt, Schroeder is Beethoven, Peppermint Patty is Tricia, Marcy is Marcie, and Lucy is Van’s Sister. These substitutes can often feel clunky and forced, marking the first of a few qualities of Dog Sees God that suggest that working off of Schulz’s cherished characters might not have been the best move. While there is a point to corrupting such an innocent entourage, the writer, Bert V. Royal could have explored the themes he’s discussing without such a large distraction.
The play opens with CB’s dog’s funeral. CB’s dog had contracted rabies, and after CB finds him frantic, foaming at the mouth, and next to the carcass of a little yellow bird, CB is forced to put him down. CB’s sister, who has decided to be a Wiccan for the week, half-heartedly consoles her brother, but berates him for holding a funeral no one attends.
Over the course of the first few scenes, we are introduced to Van (a stoner), Matt (a sex-obsessed bully), Tricia and Marcie (two alcoholic, loud-mouthed narcissists), and Beethoven (a secluded, picked-on pianist). CB tries to talk with each of these kids about the death of his dog and what they think life and death are really all about, but no one will listen except Beethoven, who is still reluctant to have anything to do with CB because he considers him a bully. CB and Beethoven have a touching conversation and begin to consider romantic feelings toward each other. While the play progresses, Van’s Sister sits in a mental institution for lighting a little red-haired girl’s hair on fire.
The main point of Dog Sees God is to show audiences that life doesn’t remain simple for long for anyone. It wants people to see that even the most innocent characters imaginable are susceptible to the trials, errors, and pains of real life. To a degree, it does this well, but where it starts to falter is in maintaining a logical growth from the characters that people know and love to the characters that we are given on stage.
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Aside from CB and Beethoven, none of the other characters seem to exhibit any of the traits that they are famous for. In effect, they’ve all grown out of their childish personalities into “realistic” stereotypes that feel really forced. Pig-Pen (Matt) never exhibits any sign of being a rotten kid in Peanuts. As a teenager, Pig-Pen is openly snorting cocaine in the hallway of his high school while shouting, “I love p—y.” Peppermint Patty and Marcy were always a bit kooky, but now they’re openly drinking Svedka in the cafeteria and having a three-some with Pig-Pen. It’s extremely difficult to reconcile these types of absurdities throughout the play, and the discrepancy between the purity of the cartoon characters and these melodramatic manifestations of their older selves distracts the viewer from really appreciating the message that Royal is trying to get across. This is all, however the fault of the nature of the show, not of the performances given.
Several members of the relatively small cast of Dog Sees God take on their characters in a memorable fashion. Will Krom, MCAS ’16, and Andrew Gaffney, MCAS ’16, playing CB and Beethoven, respectively, have a noticeable and engaging chemistry together and portray their characters’ struggle over their sexuality very genuinely. Pothead Van, played by Andrew Meck, MCAS ’18, easily releases much of the tension in some of more serious scenes with a witty, albeit slowly delivered quip. For the one scene Danielle Wehner, MCAS ’16 is in, where CB visits Van’s Sister in an institution, she steals the spotlight as Van’s Sister. Charlie Brown and Lucy have the most cemented dynamic in the Peanuts specials, and the scene between CB and Van’s Sister held the most weight and showed the audience a relationship that was heavily anticipated. Though the writing for the older iterations of the Peanuts’ clan seemed a bit shoehorned and their teenage personas under-developed, the cast of Dog Sees God brings an immense amount of energy to the performances and keeps the piece both entertaining and captivating.
The set in Bonn Studio Theater also fits the mood of Dog Sees God well. Spray-painted across the front of the black stage is a yellow zig-zag emblematic of Charlie Brown’s iconic shirts. One corner of the stage is made to look like a classroom wall with a window whose panels are blocked out by Peanuts comic strips. The brick wall where Linus and Charlie Brown often talk out their existential crises is broken down the middle, laced with spray paint. The ragged, yet somewhat familiar setting combines with the complicated tone of the play to create an impressive duality that strikes viewers, regardless of their interpretation of Dog Sees God.
It’s strange to see a warped version of a favorite cartoon. That’s what makes Dog Sees God, at the very least, intriguing. At times, the play seems to have gone too far in making every single character face or take the role of some extreme adversity or quirk. The Peanuts cartoons are a staple of classic animation, and it’s difficult to see their natural innocence torn apart and replaced with this somewhat realistic representation of social problems. Some might feel that Royal went too far in choosing the obstacles that lay in these characters’ paths and the personas they take on in their teenage lives, while others will see what Royal has created as a good dose of reality to a flowery, romantic ensemble. Either way, Contemporary Theatre’s Dog Sees God gives audiences an energetic, possessing, intriguing performance of the controversial material.
Featured Image by Julia Hopkins / Heights Editor
