Theatre Talk Buffalo Review of “SPELLING BEE”
Review by Anthony Chase
There is no other musical quite like The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. With adults playing children who invest all the energy and earnestness of gladiatorial battle into a trivial competition, this show combines elements of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown and Pageant, with maybe a touch of A Chorus Line. The result is utterly unique.
The setting is a geographically ambiguous middle school somewhere in Putnam County, New York, where a crew of nerdy children, most bearing the scars of parental damage, compete in an annual spelling bee. Presiding over the proceedings is the charming Rona Lisa Peretti, the number-one realtor in Putnam County and a former spelling bee champion herself. At her side is Vice Principal Douglas Panch, who serves as judge and word-pronouncer. Mr. Panch has returned to the Bee after a five-year absence stemming from an unspecified “incident” at the Twentieth Annual Bee. (He’s in a better place now.) Add to this the participation of Mitch Mahoney as the Official Comfort Counselor, a duty he is undertaking in fulfillment of the “community service” requirement of his parole.
The show evolved from an original improvisational play called C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E, created by Rebecca Feldman and performed by The Farm, a New York-based improvisational comedy troupe. It was developed into a full musical through a workshop process with music and lyrics by William Finn and a book by Rachel Sheinkin. Opening on Broadway in 2005, it ran successfully until 2008.
Spelling Bee requires four audience volunteers to stay onstage for most of the first act, adding an element of unpredictability to the proceedings.
Let’s address those four volunteer participants right away. Despite making a significant impact throughout much of the show, they work without pay and vanish after their moment in the spotlight. I respectfully suggest that professional actors make poor audience volunteers. Discomfort and humiliation are essential ingredients of comical audience participation. On opening night, three of the volunteers were recognizable local actors who were, unsurprisingly, comfortable on stage and eager to join in the choreography and stage business as if rehearsed. The fourth was an embarrassed and out-of-place person who struck comedy gold with every awkward gesture. That fourth person saved Act One. I adore her, whoever she was, including her surprise victory in spelling “oubliette.” I hope she had a wonderful evening and a safe journey home to Amherst, or wherever she is from. As for the others, I trust I will see you onstage again soon and expect that you will add this show to your resumes under “improv work” or “additional skills.”
Now, onto the professional cast.
Amy Jakiel ideally embodies the nurturing yet no-nonsense Miss Peretti. She possesses the requisite vocal versatility and creates a woman suffused with kindness, patience, and genuine love for children. She also convincingly portrays a take-no-prisoners spelling bee competitor and relentless real estate agent – tasks invested with equal measures of professionalism and competitive spirit. Jakiel bestows the same stern kindness on Mr. Panch as she does on the children, alternating between warm looks of approval and withering glances of warning. Her habit of broadcasting awkward private details about everyone with cheerful obliviousness delights throughout. As the heart of the show, Jakiel carries this responsibility with elegant assurance.
Vice Principal Douglas Panch, by contrast, has issues. This pivotal role combines absurdly simple and impossibly obscure words with an improvisational nature, while the subtext of Mr. Panch’s unwelcome romantic yearning for Miss Peretti creates abundant opportunities for spontaneous comedy. (Jay Reiss, an improv artist who originated the role, is credited for “additional material,” including the hilarious responses provided when contestants ask for words to be defined or used in sentences.) Steve Copps mines every opportunity in this role at Second Generation, crafting a character both jocular and psychologically fragile, earnest in his desire to succeed but often unable to focus on the task. The exchanges between Jakiel and Copps provide many of the evening’s highlights.
Brian Brown brings both pathos and wit to the role of Comfort Counselor Mitch Mahoney, delivering deliciously snarky comedy while showcasing his impressive vocal abilities.
Among the “child” competitors, Derrian Brown stands out with a full-throttle, no-holds-barred performance as magic-footed William Barfée. The journey of this adolescent boy, who uses his foot to write out words before spelling them aloud, anchors the play’s emotional core. Burdened with allergies and a rare mucus membrane disorder that keeps him from breathing through one nostril (as well as a deadly peanut allergy), Mr. Barfée shields himself from a cruel world with rudeness and condescension until his unlikely friendship with competitor Olive Ostrovsky awakens his humanity. Under Brown’s confident guidance, combining brilliant physical comedy with vocal prowess, this plot thread proves both hilarious and genuinely touching.
Sabrina Kahwaty creates a beautiful counterpoint as Olive, whose father never arrives to see her make the spelling bee finals or pay her $25 entrance fee. Kahwaty charts a compelling course from shy girl haunted by abandonment to budding self-confidence, while maintaining Olive’s essential kindness and openness. Her scenes with Brown as Barfée shine as brightly as her poignant moments with Miss Peretti, who clearly recognizes a kindred spirit in this sensitive girl.
The rest of the ensemble also shines: Brandin Smalls inhabits the confident and competitive returning champion Chip Tolentino, smartly dressed in his Boy Scout uniform, who discovers that puberty and competitive spelling make treacherous companions. Stevie Kemp brings nuance to Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre, mining both comedy and pathos from a girl whose impeccable values clash with her two fathers’ unreasonable demands for perfection. Sofia Siracuse crafts a compelling journey as Marcy Park, her mastery of six languages, dance, and violin masking a deeper struggle, culminating in an appeal to Jesus (hilariously portrayed by Mr. Smalls) to free her from excellence. Preston Williams brings warmth and authenticity to Leaf Coneybear, whose handmade clothing expresses his creative spirit and whose unfiltered enthusiasm masks unexpected gifts – when in a trance-like state, this often-underestimated dreamer spells difficult words with uncanny precision.
The original Broadway production proved a launching pad for several remarkable careers: Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) as Leaf Coneybear, Dan Fogler (who earned a Tony Award playing William Barfée), and Celia Keenan-Bolger as Olive and Jose Llana as Chip Tolentino, both of whom have continued to build distinguished Broadway careers.
At Shea’s Smith Theatre, the technical elements present both strengths and challenges. The musical balance between band and voices generally succeeds, although performers’ top notes occasionally become shrill and indistinct through amplification. Chris Cavanagh’s set and lighting design serve the show effectively, while Lindsay Salamone’s costumes deftly capture these now-iconic characters.
At Second Generation Theatre, Kristin Bentley directs with keen insight into both the show’s humor and heart, allowing each character’s idiosyncrasies to shine without losing sight of their essential humanity. The show resonates because adults secretly know we never outgrow our childhood anxieties. Kelly Copps’s choreography cleverly incorporates the nervous energy and gangly movements of middle schoolers, while Allan Paglia’s musical direction illuminates both the playfulness and poignancy in Finn’s score.
This production demonstrates that even after nearly two decades, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee remains an enchanting musical that celebrates the awkward, the anxious, and the exceptional in all of us. In the end, like any good spelling bee, there can only be one winner – but in this case, that winner is the audience.
