Actor proves less can be more in very funny ‘Dog Sees God’

Any reader worth his comic strip knows that Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" had a disturbing sense of melancholy beneath its humor. Dog Snoopy, young owner Charlie Brown and their friends spent a lot of time dealing with life's minor setbacks, as seen though the eyes of youth.

Playwright Bert V. Royal in RagTag Entertainment's "Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead" takes a similar tone and some of the same characters (slightly disguised) but deals with major setbacks seen through the eyes of teenagers. Instead of backyard football games and harmless crushes on cute redheads and kid brothers cemented to their blankets, we get sexual promiscuity, self-hating homosexuals, and a brutal murder. But don't get me wrong, the story's still very funny.

Director Tobie Romzek gives us a CB (Alan Dronek) who's sensitive, sane and struggling. When we first meet him, he's dealing with the death of his dog from rabies -- a signal to the audience not to expect a heart-warming family comedy. Dronek delivers a beautifully simplistic performance that convinces you he's an unaffected everyman. He displays barely a twitch of personal mannerism or wasted movement.

Romzek creates quite a contrast between CB and the girls in his teenage life -- played by Elizabeth Matthews, Lisa Marie Smith, Leigh Kreitz and Evelyn Connors. They live in the fast lane, and CB seems too bewildered to attempt to keep up. And Arles Estes is an appealing opposite to the wholesome CB. As Van, Estes projects the passions of a teenager who wants nothing more from life than some decent drugs and an available girl.

The show's description may sound unsavory, but the story is moving and about as pro-people as you can get. (I wish parents would see this with their teenagers, but somehow I don't think it's gonna happen.)

Romzek and Dronek handle the script's final tragedy well. They don't dwell on the tears, but they don't bypass them either. Dronek skillfully keeps CB's emotions in check, so that we, as audience members, feel we have no choice but to reach out to him. He's too genuine to ignore.

Dronek's an example of how an actor doing less can be so much more.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat @aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.