Hello, Old Friends
Theatre Review by Fergus McGillicuddy (!! --ed)
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/
 
 

                    Watching You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is like running into your old
                    gang. You know, the kids you haven't seen for years. The last three decades
                    have treated them well. True, they haven't changed much since the late '60s.
                    They're still obsessed with all the insecurities, doubts, and outright paranoia
                    that childhood is heir to. But then - tell the truth - underneath it all, aren't you
                    too?

                    To answer the obvious question at the top; yes,
                    children nowadays still know who Charlie Brown,
                    Lucy, Snoopy, Linus, Schroeder, and Sally are, and
                    they love them. At the matinee performance I
                    attended, little tykes whose ages could be counted
                    on the fingers of only two hands were in the
                    majority. To a child they sat mesmerized, behaving
                    themselves far better than many an adult audience
                    I've encountered recently. Their parents seemed
                    pathetically grateful Broadway is finally offering
                    Something To Do As A Family which does not
                    involve giant, menacing puppets guaranteed to give the just starting school set
                    nightmares. (For those of us with unpleasant memories of masses of children in
                    a Broadway theatre, the ushers assured me the week night performances are
                    relatively child free.)

                    So, is Charlie Brown just a kids' show, a mindless musical entertainment
                    discerning adult theatregoers should avoid at all costs? No, my friends, it is
                    much, much more than that. Charlie Brown is nothing less than a delightful,
                    virtuoso display of theatrical skills marshaled by its director and a handful of
                    disciplined, astute and finely calibrated bravura performances, the likes of
                    which have rarely been seen on Broadway since Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber
                    changed the rules and expectations of what a musical should be.

                    The challenge of a revival of Charlie Brown these days is what made the
                    original production so appealing. It's whimsical, with little more to its credit
                    than a handful of jokes and 16 fun and entertaining, if not exactly memorable,
                    songs. (Based as it is on a comic strip, which even at its trendy height of
                    popularity was little more than gentle, forgiving, and innocent, could it be any
                    other way?) There is no plot as such, simply a series of vignettes which are
                    little more than set-ups for character-centric musical numbers. Charlie Brown
                    is neither great nor profound Theatre.

                    This type of musical currently has a bad reputation, and deservedly so. In the
                    hands of well-intentioned amateurs or even professionals with little
                    understanding of its assumptions and demands, a vintage musical comes across
                    as stale, pointless, and potentially offensive to contemporary sensibilities. But in
                    the hands of gifted theatre artists who understand the material's limits and
                    clockwork structure, in performance it can bring a glow to a stage and enchant
                    and amuse even a cynical and jaded modern audience.

                    The director, Michael Mayer, understands and is at ease with this demanding
                    and now risky material. That he has made all the right choices is obvious from
                    the start. The pace is quick, the staging lively and appropriate, the transitions
                    smooth, the tone enthusiastic, and the mood joyful. What isn't immediately
                    apparent in this effortless flow is how finely honed the performances are, how
                    the cast's natural exuberance has been balanced and restrained so as not to
                    overwhelm a musical which only aspires to provide laughs, catchy tunes, and a
                    gentle good time.

                    Kristin Chenoweth plays Sally as if she is destined to become either a
                    Congresswoman or a serial murderer. (One of her speeches, suffused with
                    Brechtian overtones so dense it will give me nightmares for a week, somehow
                    sounds perfectly logical coming out of the mouth of a four-year-old.) A major
                    surprise of the show, Chenoweth somehow manages to successfully integrate a
                    sharp, contemporary edge into her role with hilarious results.

                    Stanley Wayne Mathis has perhaps the best singing voice on stage, and he
                    plays Schroeder as the most stable and mature character of the bunch. If his
                    take on the role is occasionally a bit too intense, his performance comes into its
                    own in Andrew Lippa's two new songs, "Beethoven Day" and "My New
                    Philosophy."

                    B. D. Wong pulls us in by appearing to have the time of his life playing Linus.
                    Who knew he could sing? Who knew he could dance with a blanket? (Though
                    one could wish the choreographer, Jerry Mitchell, had spent just a little more
                    time teaching that blue blanket how to dance.)

                    If he's not careful, Roger Bart will end up typecast as a dog. With Snoopy,
                    the one role in the show which allows - no, demands - flash, sass, and a sure
                    instinct for physical comedy, Bart exceeds all expectations time and time again.
                    (When was the last time you saw an actor literally bring the house to tears of
                    laughter by yawning, stretching, and scratching himself?) And, he's got the two
                    best musical numbers in the show; the inspired lunacy of the "Rabbit Chasing"
                    sequence with Kristin Chenoweth, and what can only be described as an 11
                    o'clock number in the grand tradition of Broadway musicals in "Suppertime."

                    Lucy appears to exist solely to challenge and exacerbate the developing
                    personalities of the other characters. An inept or self-indulgent actress would
                    quickly fall victim to the trap of playing Lucy as anything more than the irritable
                    and grumpy one-dimensional figure the role needs to be to allow the show to
                    work on its own terms. Wisely, Ilana Levine resists all temptations and her
                    efforts pay off handsomely right at the end, when, in one simple and effective
                    sentence she brings a tear to the eye, a lump to the throat, and resolves all
                    issues of adolescent angst. If You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown has any
                    pretensions to social relevance or deep, emotional significance - and, it does, a
                    little bit - this brief, golden moment - when we are given permission to be
                    ourselves, faults and all - is it.

                    Anthony Rapp's Charlie Brown is a revelation, both for his performance and
                    the discipline and professionalism behind it. Charlie Brown is a dangerous and,
                    when done properly, thankless role. Play it all wide-eyed innocence and
                    naivete and an audience quickly grows bored and surprisingly angry with the
                    character. Overdo the anguish and self-doubt and you'll lose them even faster.
                    Dare to play it for laughs and suddenly the character is too self-aware and the
                    assumptions on which this fragile show is built shatter into a thousand pieces.

                    Jack Benny, a comic genius in anyone's book, built a career on his razor sharp
                    sense of timing and ability to gauge and communicate his reactions to the
                    illogical world confronting him at every turn. While there are still a few
                    awkward moments in Mr. Rapp's performance, on a whole he displays a
                    similar confident and understated approach, and appropriates the great
                    comedian's technique of allowing the other actors to get the big laughs. And by
                    doing so, he brings his character, and, indeed, the whole show to life. It seems
                    a little thing, to walk this particular tightrope. But, when you stop to think about
                    it, it's an astonishing accomplishment.

                    The scenery, by David Gallo, and costumes, by Michael Krass, are exactly
                    what they need to be, no more no less. The lighting, by Kenneth Posner, and
                    the sound, by Brian Ronan, is so good you don't notice it. Andrew Lippa
                    (Music Supervision), Michael Gibson (Orchestrations), and Kimberly
                    Grigsby (Music Director) are to be commended for their excellent work.

 
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