Reviews 2008
Reviews 2008
✭✭✭✩✩
music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinkin, directed by James Lapine
Dancap Productions, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
January 29-February 10, 2008
Dancap Productions' second offering in its first season is the quirky 2005 musical with the long title, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. To get rid of the usual critical ploy in discussing this show, this reviewer thought it was just too C-U-T-E for its own good. Like The Drowsy Chaperone before it, this it yet another peculiar musical where the least effective element is the music.
On entering the Elgin Theatre we immediately find ourselves in the auditorium/gymnasium where the spelling bee in the American but otherwise geographically unplaceable Putnam County will be held. Perky Rona Lisa Peretti (Roberta Duchak), former bee winner and local star realtor, is our host and nerdy Vice-Principal Douglas Panch (James Kall) is the judge. Rather like an adolescent version of A Chorus Line, we learn of the hopes and fears of the six competitors in time-stops-still moments before they spell key words. To make this process more interesting, four audience members are chosen before the show to participate in the competition though they are soon undone by such zingers as "xerophthalmia" and "kinnikinnick". Strange as it may seem the most rib-tickling part of the show is the spelling bee itself, when the contestants ask Panch for the meaning of whatever abstruse term he has chosen and then ask him to use it in a sentence. Like improv at its best, Kall weaves zippy satire of current events into his hilariously tautological answers. Duchak's outlet for humour comes through her nicey-nicey demeanour and offbeat intros for each contestant, especially funny when aimed at the four chosen audience members.
Unfortunately, the show is not all improv and comic dialogue but has ambitions as a musical, and here it fails. William Finn songs come like one forgettable radio jingle after the next. The cast's diction is so poor you rarely hear all the words--a pity since some are multisyllabic spelling bee fodder. We never get involved in the spellers' stories because they are presented too much like fictional failed sitcom pilots--Logainne Schwartandgrubenierre (Dana Steingold) from "My Two Dads" or Leaf Coneybear (Andrew Keenan-Bolger) from "My Parents, the Pot-Smokers." Though only an hour and forty minutes without intermission, the show overstays its welcome by about a half hour. Speeding up the turns at the mic only emphasizes how mind-numbing spelling bees are. Then the show lurches into anything-for-a-joke mode until the finish. As long as you are willing to explain the meaning of the song "My Unfortunate Erection," sung with obvious gestures by Chip Tolentino (Justin Keyes), this would be a perfect family show. Otherwise, it's a fun but anodyne entertainment for those who don't like their thoughts or emotions tapped too deeply if at all.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2008-01-31.
Photo: Cast photo. ©Joan Marcus..
2008-01-31
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee