The Spelling Bee is artless fun, and would be a winner were the music stronger.
It starts with such artless charm, and yet by the end is dragging its ergative verbs and uncountable nouns to the point where two hours seems interminable. Most of the fault lies with William Finn’s music, which not only fails to generate memorable songs, but as Act Two trundles along, starts to pile up dire truly ones, bullying the singers into shrillness – not helped by the sound being too loud.
If all that begs the question of why the new September Remedy Productions would choose this 2005 musical as its launchpad, the answer is twofold. First, the show is salvaged by Finn’s lyrics and Rachel Sheinkin’s book, which bulge with such funny lines and likeable characters that it’s a shame the music constricts the show’s laugh muscles so much.
Casting a spell: Daniel Raso, Axel Duffy, Rebecca Ordiz, Jessica Kok, Adeline Hunter, Matthew Predny.Six school kids compete in a spelling bee, joined by three nervous audience members, who are gradually eliminated, as then are the children, until two are left to fight over the trophy. The show has the inherent problem of being at its most entertaining at the start, when everyone’s on stage.
James Haxby stands out as Vice Principal Panch, the quizmaster who gives the impression he’d rather be de-stinging wasps than extracting obscure South American rodents from a spelling bee. Haxby’s performance is so dry it crackles, and his sidekick is the ever-reliable Katrina Retallick as the saint-like teacher Rona, while Nathaniel Laga’aia makes an auspicious professional debut as Mitch, the community service-serving ex-con.
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