Snoopy dies.
After he kills Woodstock.
Rabies is cruel. Life is cruel.
This is not "You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown."
"Dog Sees God" imagines The Peanuts crew as hormone and drug addled teens.
The names are thinly disguised to protect the playwright from lawsuits. But we know who they are.
CB (Zack Robb) as Charlie Brown is still a confused philosopher. His sister (Nicole Tuttle) is a seeker
and narcissist.
Go down the line, and each of the gang has grown, been distorted, into some character linked to Charles
Schulz timeless creations.
Lionface Production brings "Dog Sees God" by Bert V. Royal, to the stage with shows tonight,
Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in the former church at 123 E. Court St., Bowling Green. Tickets are $7
and $5 for students.
This could be a satirical comic send-up, and the play teeters during Act 1 on the verge of comedy, albeit
comedy with a mean streak running through it. The laughs it elicits seem guilty. Just as Peanuts at its
best toyed with existentialism, here the harsh realities of teen life come to the fore.
Tricia (Jalesa Earby) and Marcy (Morgan Maranto) talk frankly of sexual promiscuity and chase their
school lunches with hard liquor. Van, or Linus, (Joshua Powell) has become a pothead after his sister
and CB burned his precious blanket. He rolled the ashes up in a blunt and smoked it. Marijuana only
fuels his full-baked philosophical meandering. The kid who 50 years ago recited the Nativity story from
Luke now prattles on about nothingness and the like.
Then there’s  Matt (Michael Portteus), a self-satisfied bully, who entertains himself with crude sex
talk. Even when he quietly stews, he infects the scene with his anger.
His target Beethoven, Schroeder, (Griffin Coldiron) has become an outcast, rumored to be gay. That
prompts CB, who has bullied him in the past, to question his own sexual identity, and that drives Matt
crazy. He gets even madder than when anyone even refers to his childhood nickname Pigpen.
But CB’s feelings for Beethoven draw praise from an unlikely source, Van’s sister (Bessie D. Smith), who
is in a psychiatric prison for setting the red-headed girl’s hair on fire. Finally CB has taken action
on something, she tells him.
But just as in the strip nothing really turns out right for CB.
What’s right here are the performances. As with all Lionface shows, to say the sets and lighting are
minimal is to overstate the point.
The show relies on acting, and the cast delivers in a big way. That means Portteus as the crude bully can
scare you, and the sex talk between Earby and Maranto makes you uncomfortable.
When CB and his sister argue it’s vicious, their invective is laced with f-bombs. And Coldiron makes the
audience painfully aware of Beethoven’s vulnerability.
Then there’s CB, who wears his emotions, over the death of Snoopy, his elation over his relationship with
Beethoven on his short, striped sleeves.
The play culminates in a shocking bit of violence and then the script seems to struggle with finding a
resting place just as the characters struggle with their emotions.
A missive from the beyond strives to bring closure, but I’m not sure.
As it is read as an ensemble with the character now reverted to the childhood personas, it’s hard not to
be moved. Never have I sensed a cast that took the impact of the play so much to heart. They look like
they need a hug.