Photo by Paul Ruffolo
This past weekend, I took my 4-year-old daughter to see First Stage’s production of A Charlie Brown Christmas. I had to explain the characters to her before the show (Snoopy is nowhere near as popular as he used to be). She may not have been familiar with the characters, but my daughter genuinely liked the show. Whether you’re a big fan of the series or more familiar with the characters’ work in those marginally tolerable MetLife ads, First Stage’s latest is an enjoyable trip to the theater with the kids.
The production design of the live stage adaptation of the beloved 1965 animated TV special has a clever kind of magic to it. Schulz’s endearingly sloppy comic strip character design is rendered in realistic textures and patterns that suggest a childhood that might’ve actually existed half a century ago. Modern child actors play small-town ’60s kids who are putting on a Christmas play; the eternally luckless Charlie Brown is brought in to direct. He’s frustrated—none of the kids involved seem to realize that they’re out of touch with the true meaning of the holiday.
Casting and production design pull the characters out of their heavily merchandised Schulzian likenesses into the central theme: one kid searching for the true meaning of the holiday beneath all of the commercialism that the characters themselves have been so much a part of. In many ways this live adaptation is an improvement over the original animation. There’s earnestness to the tale for the live stage that a commercial TV special could never quite manage to resonate onto glowing screens over the course of the past half century.
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Through Jan. 3 at the Marcus Center’s Todd Wehr Theater, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-267-2961 or visit firststage.org.
