Review: LDoT's YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN

Charlie Brown - the introspective protagonist of Charles M. Schulz's iconic Peanuts comic strip - is a memorable character in American pop culture, bringing hope amid despair to generations of followers who have taken the entire gang of precocious kids to their collective heart. While hijinks and hilarity generally (after a fashion) ensue for the characters, it seems cartoonist Schulz always managed to include a lesson, a parable, something pithy and emotionally stirring, in every panel of the strip.

Perhaps most tellingly, Schulz imbued young Charlie Brown with all the attributes of the everyman paradigm, investing in him much heart and soul in order to make it easier for readers to identify with the round-headed kid. No matter how downtrodden Charlie Brown may have seemed, Schulz managed to retain a sense of realism and a never-say-die attitude to ensure his likability and to retain his sense of optimism no matter how many times Lucy Van Pelt pulled that football out of the way the very second he was about to make contact with it.

Upon closer consideration, you're likely to discover that Charlie Brown's life wasn't all disappointment and unrealized dreams. Nope, Charlie Brown was the glue that held his gang of misfits together, it was he who inspired them to do better, to aspire to loftier goals and to support their most outrageous antics. By being a good friend to those around him, Charlie Brown proved himself again and again to be a smart and reasoned leader - one who never failed to raise up after many a defeat and to charge forward once again to display that aforementioned never-say-die attitude.

And no matter how those around him derided CB, casting aspersions on his every effort and poking fun at his lack of athletic ability and his clumsy courtship of a certain red-headed girl, in retrospect at least, it would appear they always had his back, they always respected him and, in general, they looked up to him: You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown being so much more than a Broadway musical, but instead representing their thoughts about the guy without whom they would never have existed.

Onstage through Saturday night at Lipscomb University's Collins Auditorium, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, represents a musical theater genre that has fallen out of favor in the 21st Century: its very innocence and perceived lack of guile guarantee that it will ultimately become the stuff of community theater, academic theater and their ilk. After watching the show play out on stage - even when it's directed by Kari Smith with gleeful exuberance - you can't help but wonder how it ever played Broadway (Twice, even!), even after a rather successful mid-1960s off-Broadway stand.

Elijah Wallace leads Smith's ensemble of young actors with a finely hewn performance as Charlie Brown, exuding enthusiasm and optimism in the face of the oftentimes pessimistic natures of his friends. He's aided and abetted by Connor Weaver, who's great as Snoopy even if his tap-dancing isn't quite up to par.

Haley Sue Pearson is fine as the acerbic and demanding dilettante Lucy Van Pelt, while Scott Patrick Wilson pretty much steals every scene he is in as the piano prodigy Schroeder. Bekah Purifoy and Hunter Martin fare less well as Sally Brown and Linus Van Pelt: She's shrill and unlikable (even though she performs "My New Philosophy" with more than a little theatrical swagger) and he inexplicably scampers around with his blanket in an annoyingly odd manner.

Sarah Reed, Robyn Smith, Corey Miranne, Emily Hughes and Lauren Yawn complete the cast as members of the Peanuts chorus of characters: Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Pig Pen, Frieda and Woodstock, respectively.

Smith's choreography keeps the show moving at a good pace and by show's end - "Happiness," the song most easily remembered from the show's score - you'll find your own criticisms amounting to nothing more than mere quibbles about choices that don't amount to much more than a hill of beans. In fact, you're likely to be moved by the song's simple and hopeful nature, the lyrics touching your heart no matter how hard and cold it might be.

• You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Based on the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. Book, music and lyrics by Clark Gesner. Directed and choreographed by Kari Smith. Musical direction by Randy Craft. Presented by Lipscomb University Department of Theatre, at Collins Auditorium on the Lipscomb University campus, Nashville. Running through Saturday, April 16. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes (with a 15-minute intermission).

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