“Dog Sees God” explores teenage despair, hope and life after Snoopy

Grind Arts Company’s production of Bert Royal’s parodic play “Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead,”directed by Steven Tran ’15, takes on an irresistible premise: What would happen to Charlie Brown and his Peanut friends if they grew up?

It's about 10 years later, and — prepare yourself — Snoopy has been put to sleep after ripping Woodstock to shreds in a rabid rage. Pigpen has cleaned up into “Matt,” a violently germophobic, homophobic, misogynistic nightmare of an alpha male. Linus, now known as Van, is a stoner who smoked the burnt remains of his beloved blanket. Lucy, known only as Van’s sister, is a lithium-addled pyromaniac. Schroeder, now known as Beethoven, is so viciously bullied that he considers bringing a gun to school. The story, which begins and ends with funerals, has as much in common with “Heathers”as it does with the Peanuts comic. Don’t come here looking for nostalgia; this play is brutal.

Our guide through this world is, of course, the man himself, here called “C.B.” (Manuel Marichal ’16). Snoopy’s death has sent C.B. into a downward spiral of despair. He travels from troubled peer to troubled peer, asking, “What do you think happens when we die?” The answers he receives are as strange as they are unhelpful: Maggot food. Wiccan reincarnation. Who cares, fuck as many sluts as you can while you’re alive.

The script leaves much to be desired. Though teenaged Marcy (Cameron Platt ’16) complains about the obligatory cafeteria scene in every high school movie — you know, the one that tells us that jocks sitthere, cool kids sitthere, drama geeks sitthere— there are times when this play feels like a 90-minute extension of that same tired routine. And there are times when Royal’s text feels like a dirtied-down, cliché-riddled remake of an anti-bullying special. There’s drinking and drug abuse, abortion, molestation, suicide, bullying, prejudiced jocks,popular girls, bulimic girls, a talented, tortured, quiet boy and more.A nominal storyline ties all this together — someone’s secretly gay! —but the writing relies too heavily on tired shock-value (ooh, those girls just did drugs and now they’re having a threesome with Pigpen). There’s no issue this play addresses that hasn’t been handled more creatively elsewhere.

Furthermore, some plotlines are just plain confusing. When C.B. kisses Beethoven at a party, everyone panics that they’ll catch the “gay disease.” Marcy, who just let seven ecstasy-riddled teens have sex in her parents’ bed, chirps with sudden alarm: “My parents will kill me if they find out I let a homosexual in the house!” The play was written in 2004 and is set in modern-day, but it can feel archaic inmoments like these.

All that being said, there’s something deliciously fun about Tran’s production of this underwhelming text — it’s ruthlessly youthful, it’s drenched in profanity, it mercilessly skewers Charles Schulz’s beloved characters and it vigilantly pushes against triteness. The adaptation is set in the Forbes Black Box — a fantastic underground hide-out, where memorials left by previous inhabitants have been scribbled on the chalkboard walls (the blue-spotted giraffe on the back wall was a personal favorite). Between scenes, when tracks like Evanescence’s “Going Under” and Britney Spears’s “Piece of Me” rip through the darkness, you’ll feel all of your 14-year-old’s angst come rushing back.

Though they occasionally fall into stilted clichés, this fine group of actors delivers a dryly funny and emotionally resonant performance overall. As Matt, Ross Barron ’17 serves up hilarious, horny swagger edged with hideous, terrifying cruelty. When he witnesses the kiss between C.B. and Beethoven, the mask of clenched-jaw hatred that claps over his face suppresses his wild-eyed grin and might give you chills, if you’re watching closely. Marichal’s C.B. is appropriatelyintroverted and conflicted, a Good Man who’s developed a bit of a mean streak after remaining passive in the face of cruelty for so long.

Nico Krell ’18 is the beating heart of this show as the wry, outcast Beethoven. Krell doles out a refreshingly tough (and jaw-droppingly good) monologue when C.B. barges into his piano practice room to wax at philosophical length about Snoopy’s death. “You haven’t spoken to me in years,” he explodes, “and all of a sudden I get a stream of consciousness monologue about your dead dog? Forgive my bluntness, but I could give two shits about you or your vacant mind or your morbid curiosities or your dead fucking dog, so why don’t you just leave?” Stanley Mathabane ’17 is charming as ever as the sage and comparatively normalVan, who can see possibilities in a fistful of nothing but air.Abby Melick ’17 has a particularly scrumptious moment as C.B.’s Sister when she presents a one-woman performance art piece about a caterpillar who believes that, if she stays in her cocoon long enough, she can become anything she wants to be: a butterfly, a sparrow, a platypus or a human being. “I will be an extraordinary creature,”she resolves with breathless excitement — and her outsized teenageaspirations are so delightful that you root for her.

Though the play revels in gratuitous profanity and vulgarity, underneath the hyperbolically grim surface are familiar faces. Charlie Brown is still full of questions and existential crises. Linus is still philosophical. Schroeder still faithfully plays his piano while people talk at him. Lucy is still full of unsound advice. And this production succeeds on a very important thematic front. I won’t give away the ending, but C.B.’s melancholy search for meaning is resolved with a startlingly poignant gesture. Is there a design to it all? Is anyone up there looking out for us? Don't despair;the cast and crew of Dog Sees God tell usthere’s hope.

4 out of 5 paws

Pros: Generally compelling performances, innovative direction

Cons: Lackluster text, performances are occasionally clichéd