Boston is not a city to miss a beat. In fair Beantown, one can find live music, the latest in the art scene, cutting edge movie festivals and wonderful live theater. There was once a time when Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" was in vogue but nowadays, it is clever, quirky, hilarious and touching pieces, like Boston native William Finn's "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," that the country has fallen in love with.
"Spelling Bee" is an unorthodox show about unorthodox characters. Running like a real spelling bee with a cast of quirky misfits (and a few audience members who must not know what they are getting into by volunteering to join the bee), the show is a vehicle to address real issues that children have to struggle with every day and contains tongue-in-cheek humor about the awkwardness of elementary school.
After spectacularly successful off-Broadway and Broadway runs culminating in two Tony awards, it only makes sense that this gem of a show should be widely produced throughout the country. The Lyric Stage Company picks up the mantle in Boston and, for the most part, the veteran company does an admirable job with the piece.
The small cast is cohesive and vocally strong, singing through Finn's fun and pleasing harmonies handily. Several recent Emerson musical theater graduates join the small cast, lending it the kind of fresh-faced energy that fits so well with these naïve characters — although unfortunately, their greenness is felt at times. Occasional over-acting combines with some awkward staging to make this production feel slightly more amateur than what audiences may be used to at the Lyric.
Director and Choreographer Stephen Terrell did manage to keep the production engaging and funny and was able to transpose a show set up to mimic a school auditorium to the Lyric's wonderfully intimate three-quarter thrust stage. Unfortunately, the production suffered from periodically slow pacing, which can be deadly for a comedy. Yet the small cast's members always seemed deeply attuned to one another and were able to rally after a flubbed line or slightly dragging song, so the integrity of the show was hardly ever compromised.
The four audience volunteers who spell along with the actors were delightfully manipulated. During William Barfée's (a bespectacled, neurotic know-it-all played hilariously convincingly by Daniel Vito Siefring) solo explaining his method of spelling with his "magic foot," the volunteers were tossed and whirled across the stage, all while taking subtle clues about when to start and stop sporting jazz hands behind the vocalist. It is the kind of thing that participants so clearly enjoy that the audience cannot help but have a good time just watching.
Lisa Yuen, who originated the role of Marcy Park in the original Broadway and off-Broadway cast of "Spelling Bee," reprises the effortlessly over-achieving transfer student in the Lyric's production. Clearly comfortable in the role, Yuen is one of the standouts in the cast.
Other strong actors include recent graduates Lexie Fennell Frare as the politically active and lisping Logainne Shwartzandgrubinierre (so-called after the last names of her two fathers) and Michael J. Borges as home-schooled Leaf Coneybear. Because all of the characters stay on stage until they are eliminated, staying comically in character is an important task for the actors, and Terrell's bits — such as Borges's knitting in between spellings — keeps the performance continually entertaining and quirky.
"Spelling Bee" is a delightful blend of comic and touching, addressing issues from devastating neglect to adjusting to the embarrassing distractions of puberty. Lyric's production may not be perfect, but it stays true to the message and tone of the show and is well worth watching.
