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Mickey Jo (0:51)
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Mickey Jo (1:34)
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com I'm here today to let you know that the New York return of the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a rapturous, joyous, jubilant piece of theater that is jubilant. J U B I L A N T and and Theatre T H E A T eh? Well actually it depends Language of origin oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am usually based in the uk, but a few times a year I head over to the US to go and see as much theatre as possible. And last month during a marathon trip to New York City, I was so excited to catch the New York return of the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which recently commenced an Off Broadway run at New World Stages. This is a transfer of a regional production which premiered at another venue in a different state. We'll call it a big theater in Washington because I'm currently all out of mouthwash and that's all I'm willing to say. But it is in any case a substantial New York homecoming for the show, which was seen on Broadway two decades ago and in that time I gather that it has been performed a lot around the US that it's been done in high schools, regional theaters. I in all of that time have not seen it even once. This was my very first time at the Bee, my first experience of seeing this show because it is scarcely done here in the uk. On occasion there will be a production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and it had a UK premiere production at the Donmar Warehouse directed by of all people and prepare for this revelation. Jamie Lloyd, very much not in the striking style with which he has come to be associated in the years since, but having heard only really a little of the score and having gathered details about the premise and the comedic tone, I was very excited to go and see this show. I'm going to tell you all about it today. We're going to talk about the material, but since it is mostly character driven, we're going to talk about all of these fantastic performances. And since it is a show which includes a certain amount of extensive audience participation, I would love, as always, to hear your thoughts in the comments section down below. But on this occasion, I want to know not just what you thought of this particular production, but whether you have seen other productions of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. And I'm particularly intrigued to hear from anyone who got to be a guest speller on stage. Which words did you spell correctly? Which words did you spell incorrectly? Let us know in the I'm talking through my feelings about the show, and if you enjoy listening to those, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, let's kick off the bee. The spelling bee that is. Well, the review of the of the musical about the spelling bee. Don't kick bees. We need them. We need them for the environment. Let's talk about the show. The 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a fascinating show in terms of its origins because almost all musicals are based on something. There is an entire entire cohort which are based on films, increasingly so there are many which are based on plays that music has been added to to turn them into musicals. There are some which are based on books or the lives of individuals and real historical events And Spelling Bee, I suppose, falls into the category of those based on plays, but it's based on an improvisational comedy play created by Rebecca Feldman called Crepuscule. That's C R E P U S C U L E Crepuscule, A word to which the show pays tribute, I gather, in its opening moments. And I don't know to what extent the show is a faithful adaptation of that original source material, or whether it was just sort of a springboard for the notion of this being a theatrical possibility with perhaps similar, perhaps different characters. In any case, The Musical, the 25th annual Platinum County Spelling Bee features a book by Rachel Sheinkin and a score that is to say music and lyrics by William Finn, a brilliant musical theater composer who sadly passed away earlier this year, whose greatest work may have been the musical that became Falsettos. He also wrote a New Strain, and he's a really fascinating choice for Spelling Bee and I think a key ingredient in terms of the identity that it was able to attain because you could write a similar sort of a musical conceptually with a much sweeter, more juvenile and bubblegum sounding score. There's something deceptively sophisticated about a lot of the little chapters of this score that William Finn has written, and that's fine. Fairly emblematic of a lot of his work. He plays with these ideas of melodic simplicity and complexity pursuant to the emotions of the characters who are singing these songs. He writes a fantastic musical monologue, often one infused with a certain quantity of hysteria, which you hear a lot of in the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. And he toyed with similar notions of simplicity and complexity at odds with each other in his lyrics as well, as well as this sort of signature wit with a slightly twisted quality to it as well, all of which is absolutely perfect for these young characters. And it would have been a mistake, I think, to write a more simpler, more juvenile score for them, because these are oddball students, each of them, I believe, representing different districts competing in the county spelling bee. And while they are quite different in their personalities, each of them is, in one way or another neurotic. They're also, for the most part, very intelligent, very academic. And so the way that William Finn was able to characterize them with these lyrics as sort wise and thoughtful beyond their years, works very well with that, I think. Now, the show was developed at Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts in 2004. It then arrived off Broadway in early 2005, where it won a couple of awards, transferring very quickly to the Circle in the Square Theatre. On Broadway, which is one of Broadway's more intimate, more versatile playing spaces, allowing them to incorporate something into the show, which at the time, I guess, was pretty groundbreaking and in many ways continues to be. Because while the show is depicting a spelling bee competition between all of these different students, there are four more participants who are invited to come on stage from the audience who have signed up prior to the beginning of the show for the current Off Broadway run. You can do this in the lobby area just outside the theatre at New World Stages. And I believe, from what I have heard anecdotally, that they are prioritizing people who have not seen the show before, as well as, unless it's some sort of extraordinary coincidence, anyone in attendance at that performance who happens to be a celebrity. And those four are invited up onto the stage and they sit among the cast on this static set where they are guest spellers in the Bee. And structurally, this is what the show is. We are acquainted with our adult characters as well as our adolescent characters. There are judges, there is also a counselor on standby to provide emotional support to losers of the bee who exit the competition as soon as they spell a word incorrectly. Comfor comfort counsellor, I believe is the official title. Comfort Counselor Mitch Mahoney. And what this is basically, in a single act, is a competition musical the likes of which I thoroughly enjoy. You have the same thing in subsequent shows, like six, but also those that came before, like in a sort of a more evolved and complex sense, A Chorus Line, as well as the recent Ride the Cyclone, which has become a cult hit fan favorite show, which is what spelling bee was in its day in the mid 2000s. And a part of that can be attributed to the chance to go back and hope to get on stage and be participatory, be included in the production of your favorite show. But also, I think the show at the time struck at a really youthful and vibrant comedy, which continues, I think, to grant it, a really wide audience appeal. Much of the reason why Spelling bee works as well as it does is these characters. But also it's something very easy to laugh with, with an immediately clear premise, even to those of us visiting from countries where spelling bees aren't necessarily the norm. You understand what it is. And they go out of their way to explain the rules and how it's all going to work, which I guess is also for the benefit of the guest spellers who have been brought on stage. But in terms of the dramatic structure each of these different characters are going to take in turn to attempt to spell these words. They can ask for definitions, they can ask to have it used in a sentence, they can ask for the language of origin. And they remain in the competition as long as they continue to spell these words correctly, for which they use various different meth. And as we progress through the show, they take in turns not only to spell, but also to sing. Occasionally, these are inner monologues, repressed thoughts. Occasionally these are things that they simply are desperate to express, either to the judges, their fellow spellers, or out to the audience who understand that they are guests at the Bee, which is a great and fun way of contextualizing the whole thing, which really pays off in this production, directed by Danny Mefford, when one character points out into the audience and requests that a seat be saved for her dad, who sadly is running late. Or when another character appear among the audience and delivers what becomes one of the comedic highlights of the show. Now, the script is hysterically funny. Both it and the score do a fantastic job of separately characterizing all of the personalities who we encounter on stage. There is also a occasional improvisational element, because the actor playing Ronalisa Peretti, one of the judges and hosts, I guess, of the Bee, shares a fun fact about each of the spellers on stage as they are stepping forward to take their turn. For the characters written into the show, these are preordained, but for the participants from the audience, they are not. So there's a fun moment of improv as these audience members get to hear fun jokes about them, inspired perhaps by, like, what they're wearing, if it's a celebrity, then by their career. And the great joy of the show is the juxtaposition between how seriously they all take it, judges and participants alike, and how increasingly ridiculous it becomes. Familiar of like the dog competition centric comedy film Best in Show, this idea of cartoonish personalities desperately trying to win in this arena about which they are so, so passionate. With Mitch Mahoney being the one who eventually gives voice to all of this as he shares his bubbling up thoughts about how ridiculous all of this seems. And while Rona is the one who shares the fun facts about the participants, it is Vice Principal Douglas Panch, sat alongside her, who offers each of them the words to be spelled. Their definitions, as well as the usage of each of them in a sentence becomes more and more comic and ridiculous and occasionally a little adult. And these increasingly chaotic cartoonish characters and the insincerity of the whole thing sets us up as the audience to be caught entirely off guard when a hugely emotionally sincere song arrives later on in the show. The I love you song performed by Oliver Strowski, one of the participants alongside visions of her absent parents. In true William Finn style, it is very haunting and emotionally moving and pretty uniquely at odds with everything else that is happening musically throughout the show. For that reason, it has always been a well loved standout moment of this score. Performed brilliantly in this production. Let's talk about these.