Good grief, what a great show!

This blog post is late. Very late. If I were to have been any use to the Philippine theater community, this post should have come out months ago. That's because there is no use talking about how great a show is when it's no longer running and your readers no longer have the chance to see it themselves.

But I write about it anyway not because I want to make you people jealous (that's just a bonus) but because I believe all good things must be shared.

I've been a fan of Peanuts since I was a kid. One of my first blog posts on Passionately Pretending was about Peanuts. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the comic strip. Anyone who has ever read a Peanuts strip knows that behind those child-like drawing is wisdom and insight about human nature.

Take this for instance.

So when I heard that the musical You're A Good Man Charlie Brown (herein referred to as YAGMCB) was going to be staged in Manila, you can imagine how excited I was. After all, I loved Peanuts and I loved musicals. This was like the best of both worlds.

I have the bad habit of not paying attention to the troupe that stages a show and look only at the material. I say this is a bad habit because the quality of a company has a great impact on the theater experience. This particular theater company was, I would find out later, 9Works Theatrical, a local company with stars like Robbie Guevara, Carla Guevara-Laforteza, Tonipet Gaba and Sweet Plantado-Tiongson. I had already seen most of these actors in other shows so I knew that this was a show I wouldn't regret seeing.

I only knew of three songs in the YAGMCB musical: "Happiness", "Beethoven Day" and "My New Philosophy". You've probably heard "Happiness" too, except you didn't know that was it. Here, give it a listen and I'd bet you it's familiar to you.

True enough, I was smiling throughout the entire show and not just because of the songs. When a literary character comes to life on stage, you always wonder if the reality will ever be as good as how we've envisioned them. But the cast of YAGMCB obviously loved Peanuts as much as we did because they took great effort to capture the essence of the classic characters. They treated the heritage of the comic with respect, acting not like adults acting like children, but instead being children with adult-like wisdom. (go ahead.. read that sentence again... it's confusing, I know, but I really can't put it any other way...)

From the moment Charlie Brown sat on the bench, lunch bag in hand, pining away for the little red-headed girl to Lucy leaning on Schroeder's piano to Snoopy fighting in World War I vs the Red Baron, the show was everything I hoped it would be. Robbie Guevara, in particular, was wonderful in the title role. He was Charlie Brown in all his earnestness, sincerity and insecurity. He was a joy to watch.

What did surprise me though was Schroeder. As an artist with an obsession for Beethoven, I expected Schroeder to be quiet, sullen and aloof. But Tonipet Gaba's portrayal was a young boy with a playful heart who not only loved Beethoven, but tried very hard to avoid Lucy's infatuation. His shining moment was the number "Book Report", where I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.

If you've read enough of the strips you'll recognize much of the material that played out on stage. The show followed no strict storyline, but narrates the world of the Peanuts gang much in the same way the comic does: short snippets of witty truth that resonates both in your heart and in your head. It was a wonderful escape into a world that was simplified yet wise.

I'm glad I finally got to see this on stage. Who knows, they might even bring it back. If they do, I strongly encourage you to see it. Until then, I'll just be humming the songs.

with Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Linus

the fans of Schroeder

Sally Brown and friends

She's a Lucy, I'm a Lucy. Are you a Lucy too?

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