Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead - Acting Edition [Paperback]

Bert V. Royal (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc. (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822221527
• ISBN-13: 978-0822221524
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #21 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > United States
  • #44 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > General
  • #75 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > United States

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to Your Future, CB. You sure you want to go there?, November 8, 2008

By 

Donald Hargraves (Munster, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead - Acting Edition (Paperback)

Burt Royal brings the Peanuts Gang into the 21st century, and it's not a pretty sight.

The characters are recognizable as Peanuts analogs, not just from their names but from their habits and tendencies; even the characters who are merely mentioned (Franklin, Freida, The Little Red-Haired Girl) make sense from the minimal descriptions given them. Only the Beethoven character requires some work for his character to make sense.

The plot of the play involves CB mourning his dead dog, trying to figure out the meaning of life and trying to do right by someone he had known before some troubles threw him into the "Violently Outcast" category. His friends are unable to answer or mourn, and his attempt to right things goes mortally wrong.

As long as the characters stay in their stage reality by using their stage names the action seems to drift from dysfunction to dysfunction. Every thing that could go wrong with Teenagers today, from drinking to eating problems to extreme navel-gazing to bullying to cattiness to lazy religiosity is hit, one at a time with each character. As stage names resolve into Peanuts names, however, the stage reality slips off with painful consequences for all involved. And the final scene will throw all but the darkest of hearts into tears.

The major drawback to the play is that the character depiction seems to require a bit too much of an early 2000's understanding of teenager behavior, and of that only what people consider wrong with kids nowadays. The characters (Outside of CB) seem unable to do more than pay attention to themselves; hence the turn to the worse when one character gets forced out of his stage reality by a name said by another character (One Word: Pigpen).

Having said that, the play is an interesting window into how the Peanuts characters could have evolved had they been allowed to become adolescents. While the subject matter definitely requires a certain level of tolerance or maturity (or willingness to let things develop), there is some hopefulness in the outcome. CB does get some accolades from family and friends, and even a letter from his Pen-Pal.

Not an all-out five-star (don't like what's happened to the Peanuts gang, at least according to Royal), but definitely worth buying (and doing on stage).

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Set aside one hour(for the play) and a packet of kleenex (for the end), June 26, 2007

By 

Valerie A. Lord (Malta, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead - Acting Edition (Paperback)

Just read this today on the train to Albany from NYC. The vast majority of this read like a light literary exploration of comedic masturbation intended to shock and offend, with little or no point or purpose (hence the 4 stars). However, the final three pages pulled it all together in a breathless, world-changing (at least for me) sob-fest guaranteed to bring the most staunch of middle-aged men and women to their knees in tears. This conclusion moved me more than the end of ANGELS IN AMERICA, maybe cos it came out of f$%^&ing nowhere, and that's saying a LOT!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great blockhead tribute, September 11, 2009

By 

A. Shimabukuro - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead - Acting Edition (Paperback)

I loved reading this play. It was recommended to me by a friend, since she knew I really loved the Peanuts gang. Although it does have strong language and general material, it's an interesting take on what the gang would be like if they grew up in the modern world and are now high schoolers. It's something that is it's own piece, but at the same time, you can tell which characters are which.