"Your A Good Man, Charlie Brown", as preformed by the Morehead State Drama Society

Essay by d0gm@High School, 10th gradeA+, May 2003

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In the play, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown; you can see your favorite two-dimensional stars from the Sunday paper, breathed into vibrant life. All your favorites: Linus and Lucy, Snoopy and Schroder, Charlie himself, and his little sister Sally, parade about the stage, reenacting the most popular skits from the hit strip, "Peanuts", which, until recently, was syndicated in thousands of newspapers, on six continents, in forty-eight languages.

Unfortunately, with the passing of Charles Shultz, the real-life Brown, who wrote and hand-drew every panel of every strip, the series is no longer with us. But You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown keeps the "Peanuts" spirit very much alive.

The set was done very simplistically, as it should be, and in a touch of genius, the entire wardrobe, and even Snoopy's doghouse (The Slopewidth Camel), looked hand-drawn and freshly colored. Everything just leaps right off the Saturday Post.

The songs were very kid-friendly, and almost and little too sing-alongish for the older audience, but with catchy tunes and the specially coordinated vocals, I often found myself humming, despite the obvious annoyance to those around me.

The overall plot isn't very cohesive, and upon closer inspection, is word-for-word quoting Shultz's work. Fans of the series certainly won't mind, but the casual reader-turned-audience member may find themselves occasionally lost and a little angry about the general lack of resolution or development. To that end, this isn't so much a play in an actual sense of the word, as much as several comical running-gags, tied together by some sparse musical numbers.

This is remedied by spectacular acting, courtesy of the MSU drama-department. Every nuance and quirk of the comics is masterfully captured and recreated on stage, and yet the cast didn't seem to suffer from the intimidation that usually...