Review by Doug Bale
The London Free Press
Thursday, December 10, 1992
 
Charlie Brown proves  
to be perfect child's play  

The production features strong, animated performances and a plot that's bound to appeal to the kid in everyone.  

WOODSTOCK - Woodstock Little Theatre's production of You're A Good Man Charlie Brown is a good bet for the kids. 
    The script comes with built-in insurance against incompetence - naivete is one of its predominant characteristics, so shyness and slips can seem quite appropriate - but as it happens, no claim on that insurance is needed. 
    The Charles M. Schulz comic-strip kids and situations are evoked winningly. The irrepressible   beagle Snoopy and the super-crabby Lucy Van Pelt, in particular, are fortuitously cast and played with verve by Matthew Cassidy and Nancy Jeffreys. Cassidy is assisted in the first act's most memorable number by five-year-old Kaitland Gray as Snoopy's avian accomplice Woodstock. 
    Cassidy steals the second act too, with an exuberant razzle-dazzle song-and-dance tribute to a dog's best friend, his supper dish.

   ENJOYMENT: I suppose there might be some kid somewhere who wouldn't enjoy this, but frankly I can't imagine it. 
   Jefferys not only looks her part but acts it too, with as much conviction as if she were playing Lady Macbeth instead of Charlie Brown's football-snatching femme fatale. 
    David Lewis, in the role of Charlie Brown, has as much trouble getting his voice up to the right note as Charlie has getting kite up out of the trees, but he also projects a rueful self-awareness that disarms criticism. 
    Mark Marshall plays Linus, Tracey Eccleston is Patty and Jason Paquette mimes a mean piano as Schroeder. 
    The real piano sound comes courtesy of Cheryl Ferguson, and very listenable it is too. Musical director Tim Nicholls supplies the percussion. Together they sound as professional as young Kaitland sounds cute. 
    The design and direction are by WLT artistic director Peter Lloyd Pownall. Snoopy's snappy scenes benefit almost as much from Pownall's input as from Cassidy's fine output.