Charlie Brown and his school yard chums have changed little since their creation in the 1950s.

    Until now.

    Audience members will get a whole new look at Charlie and the gang in “Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead.” The play is a fan fiction by Bert V. Royal, which means the author based his writings on the comic strip by Charles Schulz but it is not a licensed part of the Peanuts collection. Instead, Royal used shadows of the classic characters and put his own spin on them.

    “He took these iconic characters and put them into a more modern setting,” said Richard Glen, who plays Matt (Pig-Pen) who is an obsessive neat freak.

    The story takes the Peanuts characters and catapults them 10 years into the future so that they are all now 18. The beloved Snoopy has died from rabies after killing Woodstock. The lovable loser Charlie Brown, or C.B. as he’s now called, has become a popular kid but with a mean streak. His best friend Linus, now known as Van, has become a drug addict. Van’s sister (Lucy) has been institutionalized for setting the Little Red Girl’s hair on fire. Beethoven, a twist on Schroeder, is still a talented musician but haunted by his abusive past and ostracized by some members of his circle. Drug use, eating disorders, teen violence and even sexual identity come into play in the story.

    “It’s a modernization of what was once very innocent,” said Sean O’Neil, who plays C.B. “Everybody gets older. We lose our innocence and we have to deal with issues like drug use, suicide and teenage angst in general.”

    “There’s kind of a hidden message ‘this is what your kids are up to when you’re not around,’” added Bowen Morrison, who plays Van.

    While “Dog Sees God” includes a few nods to the original Peanuts characters, performers in the Centralia College version actually did little studying of those characters to prepare for their performance. This is not a spoof, they cautioned, it is a dark humor drama based on iconic childhood characters. With Royal’s take, the connections are sparse to the beloved 8-year-olds caroling around a twig of a tree.

    “These aren’t caricatures,” said Director Brian Tyrrell. “They may have come out of them but people will see their sons and daughters and friends in these characters.”

    ALONG WITH more mature themes for the Peanuts gang also comes more mature language, Tyrrell warned. Publicity for the play rates it “M” for mature audiences, especially because of phrases that might have some audience members saying “good grief.”

    “He allows them to live in a world with no filters,” Tyrrell said. “There’s no parents, no teachers, and that’s why it’s rated ‘M.’ Just like, I’m sure, when most teenagers are around one another it can get kind of blue.”

    Despite the rating, Tyrrell said no audience members will be turned away because of age. He said the rating is meant to be more of a warning that the play deals with mature subject matter and language but anyone with an open mind is welcome, regardless of age.

    Following the performance of “Third” in the Wickstrom Theatre where Tyrrell actually built the stage around the audience seating, “Dog Sees God” will feature avenue or ally style seating. Audience members will be seated on either side of a strip of a stage, which will be yellow with the iconic black Charlie Brown zigzag painted its length. The stage settings will be sparse, consisting of a front door stoop and the classic brick wall, Snoopy’s dog house, Schroeder’s piano and Marcie’s lemonade-turned-psychology stand from the comic strip.

    Through dark themes, Tyrrell and his actors said the play is worthwhile because audience members will likely find characters within “God Sees Dog” with whom they will identify and situations that will ring true. O’Neil said he read the Peanuts comic strips as a child and recalled always feeling bad for Charlie Brown. He said wallowing through some of the heavy stories in “Dog Sees God” is difficult but the audience will be rewarded with a plot turn at the end that won’t fix everything but will at least bring the audience to some sort of closure.

    “Life sucks but the best you can do is keep a good attitude,” O’Neil said. “I think that’s really what this play is all about.”

    Carrina Stanton is a freelance writer who lives in Centralia. She can be reached at carrinastanton@yahoo.com.