Natalie Czar and Sam Daly, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Mat Simpson

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

“We hear the word. We breathe. We Wait. Unlike idiots we ideate….” — The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Don’t you love it when there’s ideation? Enough, though, of omphaloskepsis. You can have a lot of fun — yes, happiness of both the h-e-d-o-n-i-c and e-u-d-a-e-m-o-n-i-c kind — at Grindstone Theatre’s production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

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More given to creating their own musicals in the dark satirical comedy vein (Jason Kenney’s Hot Boy Summer, ThunderCATS, DIE HARSH), Grindstone has ideated their way into producing a funny and endearing 2005 Broadway musical comedy. And Byron Martin’s high-spirited production, onstage at the Campus St.-Jean, introduces an array of young musical theatre up-and-comers that should be attracting talent scouts across town.

The musical (music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinkin) returns us to the quintessential school gym of our youth (designer: Raili Boe), complete with racks of basketballs, bleachers, snot-coloured walls, tumbling mats shellacked in generations of student sweat. If only we’d had a band like the top-drawer one led by Grindstone’s virtuoso musical director Simon Abbott to mute our pain.

We meet six pubescent misfits whose claims on being extraordinary, or even keeping up a minimal level of self-esteem, involve spelling “weltanschauung” correctly, out loud, first time.

True, it’s an era of the autocorrect where ‘it’s’ and ‘its’ much less ‘i-before-e’ have entered a kind of collective murk. But it’s also an era when nerdism has come gloriously into its own. And the musical builds its story from fragmentary vignette flashbacks: every misfit is a misfit in their own individual way in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, as Martin’s cast (costumed by Beverly Destroys) delightfully sets forth. Will they find validation, as did Rona Lisa Peretti, the host and a former Bee champion herself, who rose to spelling glory at the 3rd annual bee, with s-y-z-y-g-y?   

There’s the adenoidal, unfortunately named William Barfée (Sam Daly), who keeps reminding everyone, in vain, it’s pronounced with an accent aigu, and has but one functional nostril. He spells out words with his “magic foot” (and has a terrific song-and-dance number to demonstrate).

Unsmilingly brisk Marcy Parks is the overachiever saddled with the burden of being best at everything, from soccer to fencing, playing Mozart, gymnastics — all spectacularly revealed by Katelyn Cabala in the show-stopper I Speak Six Languages. “Winning is a job,” she sings, grimly.

There’s the home-schooled, completely unsocialized klutz Leaf Coneybear, who arrives in a cape (he makes his own clothes) and has never been in a gymnasium before. Sweetly played by Malachi Wilkins, he’s so used to being the family dummy (I’m Not That Smart) that he can only spell while in a trance. He seems to get only words for obscure South American rodents.

Rain Matkin, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Mat Simpson

Olive is the wide-eyed, neglected kid dazed by the magic of being at the Bee: her dad’s too busy to pay the $25 entrance fee; her mom is on a nine-month spiritual quest in an ashram. Her best friend, her only friend really, is the dictionary. And, dazed by the magic of being at the Bee, she talks into her hand to spell. She gets two of the musical’s most wistful songs, and Rain Matkin really delivers, in an appealing, heartbreaking performance. The I Love You Song, triggered by the word “chimerical,” is a knockout.

Cameron Chapman, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Mat Simpson

Last year’s champion Chip (Cameron Chapman), in chipper boy scout gear, is funny too, as the speller fatally distracted by pubescent lust. He gets a lament song, My Unfortunate Erection (“is destroying my perfection”). And Chapman nails it (an unfortunate verb choice on my part).

Logainne SchwartzandGrubenniere, played by Abby McDougall, whose whose bright smile is a perfect combination of brio and terror, is under huge pressure to win from her two gay dads (we meet them in flashback, arguing). Since she has a lisp, naturally she keeps getting words like “cystitis.”

There’s a cruel streak to all this, savoured (with gusto) by Czar as Ms. Peretti as the host, relentlessly perky and full of educational zeal that’s a bit carnivorous (she is now Putnam County’s leading realtor). That, my friends, is why there’s a “comfort counsellor,” on parole and doing his community service at the Bee. He’s the formidably imposing Paul-Ford Manguelle, who dispenses hugs and juice boxes to those whose spelling wasn’t quite good enough — as he thinks to himself (in song) “this is nothing, ya little freaks.”

Instead of the school superintendent who’s the usual Word Pronouncer (he’s apparently gotten himself stuck in the river valley amongst some tennis balls), Vice-Principal Douglas Panch has kindly stepped in. “As to that incident five years ago,” he says, “I’m in a much better place now. It’s amazing what a change in diet can do for a man.” He’s played, in fierce deadpan mode, by virtuoso improviser Donovan Workun, a sight to behold in bangs and his argyll sweater vest (costumes by Beverly Destroys). From him we hear amusingly  non-helpful assists, when contestants ask for a word to be used in a sentence. Phylactery: “Billy. Put down that phylactery. We’re Episcopalians.”

Paul-Ford Manguelle (centre) as the ‘comfort counsellor’ in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Mat Simpson

Workun, Czar, and Manguelle ably improvise, too, with game audience volunteers who join the spellers, and get either impossible words or “cow.” They get made-up annotations from Ms. Peretti: “Emma is two pieces away from swallowing an entire board game.”

On opening night this week, I found the performances sometimes a bit over-seasoned for riotous comedy at the expense of vulnerability. But, theatre, like spelling bees, has opening night nerves. And hey, this is a musical with its own Pandemonium production number, dexterously choreographed by director Martin. In any case, the audience had a very good time, laughing at and laughing with. And the show has probably already found its equilibrium (e-q-u-i-l-i-b-r-i-u-m).

Natalie Czar, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Grindstone Theatre Photo by Mat Simpson

Did I mention that Jesus puts in a guest appearance? That sounds big, but by the end, it’s the modesty of the revelations that will touch you, the momentous dimensions of small dreams. There can be only one trophy winner. But one lonely kid finally gets a friend. Another goes to college. Another shows his aggressive family that if he’s not the brightest bulb on the tree, he’s pretty smart sometimes too…. It’s a funny, touching oblique angle on a tough age.

REVIEW

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Theatre: Grindstone

Created by: William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin, with additional material by Jay Reiss

Directed by: Byron Martin

Starring: Donovan Workun, Natalie Czar, Malachi Wilkins, Paul-Ford Manguelle, Rain Matkin, Abby McDougall, Katelyn Cabalo, Cameron Chapman, Sam Daly

Where: Campus St.-Jean Auditorium, 8406 91 St.

Running: through April 29

Tickets: grindstonetheatre.ca