William Morris Barfée and his “magic feet” are back, and that spells a whole lot of fun for fans of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which arrives at Off Broadway’s New World Stages two decades after its Tony-winning Broadway debut. The show, with a buoyant score by the late William Finn and a delightfully silly book by Rachel Sheinkin, is an exercise in old-fashioned silliness that relies on a good deal of improvisation by Lilli Cooper and Jason Kravits as the hosts, MCs, and deliverers of wacky definitions as well as contextual sentences.
Glee alum Kevin McHale brings the right degree of esoteric nerdiness to William Barfée, whose signature move is to spell out his assigned word with his shoe in a freestyle dance move that he performs with ritualistic intensity. He bristles at the grown-ups who repeatedly mispronounce his surname (“There’s an accent aigu,” he insists). But he’s equally matched by a cast of young spellers who threaten to overshadow him in their preteen pecularity.
There’s Leaf Coneybear (a wonderfully trippy Justin Cooley), a homeschooled child of hippies who overcomes his family’s low expectations by slipping into a trancelike state when he gets to the mic (and sports wonderfully “homemade” overalls designed by costumer Emily Rebholz); Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Autumn Best), the lisping, politically aware daughter of two gay dads; Chip Talentino (Philippe Arroyo), the jockish past champ undone by an inopportune erection that reminds us of the competitors’ pubescent condition; driven over-achiever Marcy Park (Leana Rae Concepcion), a recent transfer to the county who finished ninth in last year’s national bee; and Olive Ostrovsky (the angelic Boop alum Jasmine Amy Rogers), a sweet newcomer who arrives without parents or the entrance fee but captures just about everybody’s heart (including William’s).
Following tradition, the “junior” spellers are joined onstage by four audience members — who are also called to the mic to spell — sometimes with freebies like “C-O-W” that elicit charges of unfairness from the rest. The element of luck is underscored in the ensemble number “Pandemonium,” in which the cast lead their ticket-holding fellow competitors through the dance moves. The audience spellers are also treated to ad-hoc descriptions from Cooper’s Rona Lisa Peretti that are surprisingly spot-on (yes, that guy at my performance really was a Stephen Sondheim doppelganger). When the final grown-up contestant manages to spell a tricky word, she’s handed a stumper whose contextual sentence reads: “If you want us to go home before midnight, please misspell xerothalmia.” She obliged, leaving the stage after collecting a juice box from Matt Manuel’s Mitch Mahoney, a personal trainer turned comfort counselor who hovers nearby.
The humor of the show is driven in large measure by the patter between Kravits and Cooper, and the numerous of-the-moment updates to the material. “Ever been in a gym next to a production of Heathers before?” one cast member asks one of the audience spellers early on — referencing another musical revival playing next door at New World Stages. A mention of the MIA principal being stuck at the airport is punctuated with the timely aside to government shutdown-induced flight delays: “We all know why.”
Director-choreographer Danny Mefford brings a twinkle-toed lightness to the material, and grounds the foolishness in a colorful but mostly faithful re-creation of a middle school gymnasium (designed by Teresa L. Williams, and lit by David Weiner) that places the five-piece band on an upstage balcony just above the action. Finn’s tunes remain toe-tapping treats, and the whole cast throws themselves into the numbers with a youthful energy that suits their characters’ ages. Spelling Bee is the perfect antidote to these dreary anxiety-ridden times, and it’s worth settling down for a long, laughter-induced spell. ★★★★★
THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
New World Stages, Off Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through April 12 for $58 to $194
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