You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Charlie Brown lives!

Amanda Earls portrays Lucy Van Pelt in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown at the Aurora Fox.

Charlie Brown rocks!

Turn the chorographical genius of Nicholas Sugar loose on the Aurora Fox stage with an exquisitely hell-bent-for-leather happiness is a talented go-for-broke cast, and happiness is simply a smashing production of the warm hearted beloved You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.

After capturing the hearts of anyone who read him, Charles Schultz’s famed Peanuts gang bowed its debut on off-Broadway in 1967 with You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Schultz retired in 1999 for health reasons, and died in 2000 with the comic strip running in 2,600 newspapers worldwide.

Even after Schultz’s death in 2000, the open love affair with Peanuts only escalated continuing with re-runs of the comic strip. The musical continues to be one of the most produced musicals preformed across the boards. Originally Charlie Brown batted his way to off Broadway in 1967. In one form or another, he never left the stage.

Although this round-headed boy who claims he is five-year-old and then some, never could get anything right from playing baseball, to flying kites, to never getting a Valentine when his dog Snoopy carried his catch in a wheel barrow, to never getting up the nerve to talk to the little red-headed girl, he won two Tony Awards.

And now the Aurora Fox blows life into the musical with such strength and power, it is as though it has never before been performed. Based on a thrilling Broadway revival with a new script and musical score, 17 of the original show’s scenes have been deleted and 21 new ones added. Composer Andrew Lippa revised seven of the original 12 songs, and added two new ones: “Beethoven Day” and “My New Philosophy.” The Book, Lyrics and Music of the original production was written by Clark Gesner who took the comic strip off the page and brought it to forever-memorable life.

On a Charlie Brown designated set, joyfully designed by Tina Anderson, that features black boxes as pedestals for the youngsters to cavort then magically transforms into Snoopy’s dog house and an oversized sofa. Five-year-olds always find sofas are oversized for them. Charles Dean Packard not only designed the lighting in bright primary colors but he danced the system onto the stage having the lights keep time with the music, the fluctuating mood of the characters, and the entire energetic rhythm perpetuated by the Peanuts gang.

The characters, ah, yes, the characters. Aside from the magnificent choreography, the songs, the exploding energy reminding everyone of Happiness, what it is and what it is not, lies the most amazing aspect of all: the characters.

No one plays the characters. No one attempts to play Charlie Brown, Linus Van Pelt, Sally Brown, Schroeder, Snoopy, or Lucy Van Pelt. The characters have carefully chosen their people and engulfed them with their own personalities.

Under the blond bangs of Charlie Brown, somewhere lies Chris Wyde who has given himself over to Charlie Brown from the mournful expressions, the dissolving stance of depression, to the woeful sigh of wanting the little red-headed girl to notice him, to the despair of not being able to fly a kite, to accepting baseball’s defeat, to subjecting himself to Lucy’s holier-than-thou strenuous and brittle psychiatric conclusions. Charlie Brown borrows Wyde’s body, mind, heart and soul. Stunning artistic delivery.

With hair pulled into pony-pigtails, Lucy transforms Amanda Earls into the self-appointed queen of snobbery with her Charlie Brown bashing signature. With high flaluting energy, one almost expects her to jump off the stage to psychoanalyze the audience one by one demanding her “that’ll be five cents, please.”

Dragging his treasured blanket behind him Linus completely engulfs Steven J. Burge with his child like double edge sword perception cutting simplicity to the quick with his head filled with scholarly facts.

Brian Hutchinson has to be there somewhere, but it’s Schroeder with his magical toy piano, his love of Beethoven, his straight-forward intellectual approach to philosophy, and his disgust for Lucy’s puppy love absorption that stands before God and everyone pleading in his song for “Beethoven Day.”

Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally takes over Amy Board and explodes with wound up adorable energy that will knock your socks off then carefully put them back on because that’s the kind of little sister she is. Sally’s new song, “My New Philosophy,” fits her like a glove, and Board wears Sally as snugly as the other glove.

And how can a slight blond actor, Philip Martin, possibly become Snoopy, an everyman’s beloved dog? How may be the right question, but the timing is off because he just does. On top of his doghouse in his sopworth camel going after the Red Baron with red scarf flying. The illusion so detailed, so real, one can almost see his floppy ears flying in the wind. Snoopy’s “Suppertime” song is sheer joyful exuberance for dinner, for food, for life at the very core of unconditional love. A classic showstopper that actually fits every song from “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown,” to “My Blanket and Me,” to “The Doctor Is In,” to “The Baseball Game,” the “Glee Club Rehearsal,” “Little Known Facts,” to “Happiness.”

Having the live band in view behind the set with Martha Yordy on the keyboards, Michael Weaver on the reeds, and Christopher Beers on percussion provides exquisite surround sound Happiness is music. Sharon McClaury costumed the characters to perfection. Before the characters even have a chance to introduce themselves, you know them by their attitude and dress.

To take a much produced beloved chestnut like You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown with all of the given’s the expectations, the familiarities having each actor claim the roles as their very own, with artistic consciousness puts this production at The Aurora Fox on the map.

It is one thing for an actor to own a character, but for the characters to own their actors, that’s sheer total unadulterated magic.