‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’s’ biggest strength is also its weakness
Photo by Dean Kaylan, courtesy of the University of Victoria.
The Phoenix Theatre’s most recent production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is exactly what it says on the tin. Following a lively ensemble cast of seven quirky kids (and three chaperoning adults) competing to be sent to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, the musical follows the drama of middle school students treating a spelling bee as the most serious thing in the world.
The plot is simple and straightforward. The songs are avenues to dig into the kids’ characters, and showcase their personalities and unique spelling strategies.
William Barfée traces the words with his foot, while Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre writes out the words on her arm, and Olive Ostrovsky quietly mumbles the letters away from the mic first. It’s all done with a very tongue-in-cheek tone, and an emphasis on comedy. Overall, it’s cute.
However, this quality doubles as the musical’s greatest weakness. Put simply, the characters themselves aren’t incredibly deep. They’re more stereotypical than quirky, falling into tropes of the overachiever, the hick, the weird girl, and so on. Like the musical, the characters are exactly what they initially appear to be. The actors don’t have a lot to work with, and play these characters as straight as possible. There’s only so much heart you can put into a character who’s just the overachiever. The choreography is similarly simple and straightforward.
Songs allude to the inner depth of the characters, but more often than not, the lyrics are used just for comedy. This isn’t a bad thing in a vacuum, but the songs themselves can be quite simple, and mostly explain what’s going on. This isn’t immediately noticeable in the first act, thanks to some clever audience participation and improv, which provided some variety that didn’t follow the same beats — but this was limited to the first act.
One interesting character beat belongs to Olive, where the definition of the word “chimerical” triggers a reflection on her relationship with her parents. It’s the strongest moment in the show, which creates empathy for Olive while also taking advantage of the physical setting of a spelling bee. Emma Beadman certainly gives the song her all, as there’s finally some meat to the character. This moment also sets up a neat twist for the finale. But the staging of the song just has Olive standing on stands, flanked by her parents. The song further stands out when you realize that some kids, especially the finalists in the second act, are missing that pivotal character beat.
That being said, the first act is the stronger of the two, because of its variety. Random audience members are selected to participate in the spelling bee, complete with fake facts about their lives, words that range from easy to impossible, and funny definitions when the audience members ask for them. Both Brigit Stewart (playing Rona Lisa Perelli), who read out the improvised facts, and Jack Storwick (playing Douglas Panch), who gave the word, definition, and use in a sentence, did such a good job that this bit almost felt scripted. Both had a fantastic sense of comedic timing.
It was difficult to hear some of the lyrics, especially in the first song as the cast found their footing, but minus a few of these moments the actors do a great job with the songs and dancing. There may not be a whole lot of depth to the characters, but I am willing to overlook the script’s weaknesses if it looks like the actors are enjoying themselves, and those in the Phoenix Theatre’s production did just that.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a spectacle musical — a simple plot to allow for big show stopping numbers. But the Phoenix Theatre doesn’t accomplish that spectacle. There isn’t enough improv for variety and the dance numbers are simple. It’s funny, but not much else. A lot of the humour is derived from how seriously the kids are taking the competition, so if you were in the mood for a light, fun, low-stakes musical, it was perfect for such an occasion.
