★★★★★
There is something almost radical about how little happens in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Before Seinfeld, this was the musical about nothing. Nobody saves the world, nobody gets the girl. Nobody has a glitter-cannon self-realisation. Charlie Brown cannot fly a kite. He cannot kick a football. He cannot quite make himself speak to the Little Red-Haired Girl.
And yet, for more than half a century, Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts gang has kept people company.
The comic strip began in 1950 and ran until Schulz’s death in 2000. By then, it had been published in thousands of newspapers around the world. Long before The Simpsons or Family Guy, Charlie Brown was a cartoon figure for adults as much as children.
Schulz’s simple line drawings held depression, loneliness, rejection, ambition, anxiety and the daily business of trying not to be crushed by life. Clark Gesner’s 1967 musical, later revised by Andrew Lippa, understands this perfectly.
You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown does not force a plot onto the characters. It is more like the comic-book-musical equivalent of Cats; not Garfield. It is a sequence of vignettes, songs and tiny disasters. There is a flow, though.
We begin with schoolyard play, teachers, book reports and familiar childhood tensions. By the end, Snoopy has had supper and the gang is edging toward bed. It feels like a day in the life. A very funny one. A surprisingly tender one too.
Ryan Ricci’s production gets the visual language of the comic strip right from the first image. The cast appear onstage and settle onto small boxes painted in the colours of their characters’ clothes. Behind them, a screen reproduces the square-panel world of Peanuts. Iconic pieces emerge when needed: the green chair from Lucy and Linus’ home, Snoopy’s kennel, Schroeder’s piano.
Ricci’s set design and Vincent Alexander’s costume work lean into recognisable silhouettes without making the cast look trapped inside a theme park. Matt Ralph’s vision and lighting design keeps the world clean, bright and cartoonish. In the Red Baron sequence, searchlights sweep over Snoopy’s head as though his doghouse has become a wartime airfield.
The musical itself is driven less by big showstoppers than character. That suits this cast. Lindsay Prodea’s Charlie Brown is a sensitive centre. Prodea is clearly working against his usual public persona here. Anyone who has seen him hosting cabaret knows how easily he can fill a room with a grin. Suppressing that buoyancy for two hours is part of the achievement.
He gives Charlie Brown a tentative, careful sadness. The character’s repeated failures never become miserable because Prodea lets small flashes of hope keep breaking through.
Claire McEvoy has some of the biggest laughs as Lucy Van Pelt. Her physical comedy is wonderfully unembarrassed. When she sprawls across Schroeder’s piano, or visibly fights the urge to tell Sally a secret Charlie Brown has shared, she goes all-in. Her face does the work of several paragraphs. There is something almost Mr Bean-like in the precision of it.
Brady Lloyd’s Snoopy is a physical gift to the production. Tall and lanky beside the rest of the ensemble, Lloyd makes the dog’s sense of self-importance even funnier. He rides the kennel into battle with the Red Baron. He tap-dances through “Suppertime” alongside performers dressed as pizza and bacon. Later, he gets tangled in Linus’ blanket for one of the show’s best pieces of comic movement.
Liliana Carletti brings a terrific comic sharpness to Sally Brown. Her raspberries are practically an instrument in their own right. Sally’s stubborn refusal to absorb criticism becomes its own little philosophy. Carletti understands that the character is not simply bratty. She is creatively evasive.
Nicholas Centofanti gives Linus a thoughtful, grounded presence. His literal blanket is funny. His attachment to it is also strangely moving. Linus has philosophy, analysis and knowledge. They are his ways of surviving the world.
Michael Butler’s Schroeder is similarly calm amid the chaos. He pursues Beethoven and artistic achievement with a seriousness that makes Lucy’s romantic assault even more ridiculous.
Like Winnie-the-Pooh, Peanuts has often invited people to see its characters as emotional types. Charlie Brown carries a depressive weight. Lucy seeks control. Linus clings to security. Sally dodges judgement. Schroeder turns to art. Snoopy mostly survives through fantasy, appetite and animal pleasure.
Charlie Brown’s sadness comes from the fact that none of these strategies seem to work for him.
His kite goes up and comes down, his baseball team loses. His courage fails him at the exact wrong moment. In another show, this might become bleak. Here, it becomes an examination of the ordinary tools people use to survive disappointment.
The songs are not designed as vocal Olympics. Few are likely to follow you home as melodies. But the score is not the main event. Its job is to carry humour, character and nostalgia.
Danielle Greaves’ musical direction keeps the small orchestra crisp and supportive, while Lucy Newman’s choreography does crucial storytelling work between the vignettes. The blanket dance is a highlight. So is Suppertime, which becomes a miniature comic feast.
The only minor visual quibble is that Prodea’s Charlie Brown has hair while Butler’s Schroeder does not. Physically, they might have been more naturally cast in each other’s roles. It is a fleeting thought, though. Both actors make their assigned characters work.
This is an impressively polished production for an amateur company. Ricci’s direction has a clear comic rhythm. The production team has created a confident replica of the comic-strip world without losing its emotional intelligence.
People who grew up with Peanuts will find a lot to love in the recognition. Those born after the decline of daily newspaper comics may miss some of the built-in nostalgia.
But the emotional material remains universal. You do not need to know every strip to recognise the pain of trying, failing, trying again, and being told you are still a good man anyway.
That is a message worth singing about.
You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown is presented by The G & S Society of South Australia and runs to 4 July at The Arts Theatre. 53 Angas Street Adelaide SA 5000.
Tickets: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1501032
Website: https://www.gandssa.com.au/youre-a-good-man-charlie-brown
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/gandssa/
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