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Humor, emotion ‘spell’ success for musical

By Gaveliers, The Gavel Media Team, on November 11, 2009 12:48 AM

By Sue Byun, For the Gavel -

Charming, quirky, hilarious and E-N-D-E-A-R-I-N-G are just a few words to describe The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, performed this past weekend in Robsham’s Bonn Theater. The one-act musical comedy, with music and lyrics by William Finn and a book by Rachel Sheinkin, was directed by Juergen Kloo A&S ’10, and put on by the Contemporary Theater of Boston College from Oct. 29-31.

The musical centered around six adolescents who learned that winning isn’t everything while vying for first place in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Twitchy, concentrating faces and eccentric products of perceivably more eccentric parenting were the order of the day.

It was performed in the Bonn Theater, which seemed more living room-like than cavernous with its 350 people seating capacity and low ceilings. The intimate setting put the audience within feet of the actors playing the troubled tweens, and made it seem as if the Bonn Theater spectators were the actual audience of the fictional spelling bee.

The stage was a slightly raised platform in the center of the room with a backdrop of red velvet drapery ─ it simply had wooden bleachers, a desk for the judges, a basketball hoop, and a few hand painted posters to depict the gymnasium of the fictional Putnam Valley Middle School. A set of such minimal sensory distraction put the actors at center stage. With the adorably elementary-looking set and whimsical jazz music floating through the air – the audience knew it was in for a treat.

Even though the entire musical essentially took place in the gymnasium ─ it was still an emotional rollercoaster ─ inciting hysterical laughter one minute and a tearful “awwww” the next.

Young as the characters were, their individual struggles, insecurities, and dysfunctional family backgrounds became poignant as each contestant walked up to the mike to spell their word and considered the various stakes involved in winning – and god forbid, losing.

It didn’t take long to get a sense of the immense burden on the adolescents’ far from Atlas-like shoulders. The prestigious spelling bee prize had unique significance to each contestant ─ whether it was about pleasing overbearing parents, living up to expectations, or just overcoming another hurdle of growing up ─ the audience eventually got to know the contestants on a very personal level.

The emotional center of the show, Olive Ostrovsky, is a painfully shy girl whose mother is in India seeking spiritual enlightenment and whose father is too busy to spend time with her. Olive tells the audience how she grew up with her dictionary as her only friend and found words to be the most reliable companions. Olive was notably played by Cynthia Beckwith CSOM ’12, who for her theatre debut at Boston College, put on a standout performance that really prompted audience members to love and empathize with her character.

As a testament to the absurd humor of the musical and its unique milieu of characters, there is William Barfée, played by Daniel Fabrizio LSOE ’10. Barfée is another contestant who has an air of sophisticated superiority,  swears by his “magic foot” technique of spelling words correctly, has only one working nostril, and demonstrates a touchy personality. Fabrizio’s sardonic portrayal of Barfée proved to be hilarious.

Then there is Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, played by Shannon DeBari LSOE ’13 — a lisping, meticulously politically correct adopted daughter of an overbearing gay couple. The neurotic Logainne was evidently so, with tensely squared shoulders and knit brows. Surely, it must have been far from comfortable to maintain this posture throughout the entire performance, but DeBari was skillfully stepped into her character. Especially moving was her portrayal of Logainne’s poignant disappointment in herself when she is eliminated from the bee and fears that she is not lovable.

Other notable performances included that of Christine Movius, A&S ’13, who played Marcy Park, a very put together and aristocratically polite prep school darling who speaks six languages, excels at numerous sports and instruments, and is not allowed to cry. Movius’ rich, airy singing voice was like soothing ambrosia to the ears. There was also Allison Russell CSOM ’12, who played Rona Lisa Perettie, the sweet and sometimes stern spelling bee moderator with a warmly theatrical, flight attendant-like demeanor. Russell put on an excellent performance with one of the best voices in the cast.

A house-wide favorite seemed to be Leaf Coneybear played by Alex Olivieri, A&S ’12, a spacey and easily distracted boy from a large family of former hippies who makes his own clothes and spells words correctly while in a trance. Olivieri put on a shameless, no-holds-barred performance filled with histrionic antics that had audiences roaring with laughter every time it was his turn at the mic.

Chip Tolentino, played by Evan Cole, A&S ’11, is a boy scout who finds puberty hitting at a very inconvenient moment and ends up misspelling a word because he gets an erection. Among a cast of such colorful characters, Cole’s performance was a little nondescript until his solo musical number, “My Unfortunate Erection,” performed with many a mournful glance at his crotch ─ which absolutely delighted the audience.

A cool twist to the cast was that three of the spellers were recruited from the audience, creating even more hilarious and unexpected moments during the musical.

Director Juergen Kloo, A&S ’10, had a lot of decisions about how he wanted to make the aesthetic feel of the musical his own while directinga production that has been successfully performed many times. However, Kloo says that the musical’s success on Broadway did not influence his work.

“I have never actually seen the musical, live or recorded,” Kloo says. “I came to this with fresh eyes.”