Friday, January 13, 2006

PUT DOWN THAT PHYLACTERY, WE'RE EPISCOPALIAN: Kim's previously written about The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and I want to add a few notes about the joys and problems of the show. The chief joy is that this is a funny show. A very funny show. In fact, it's the closest I think we'll ever see to a Christopher Guest movie onstage, with large portions clearly improvised. (Tonight's performance featured a lengthy discourse from Sarah Saltzberg 's (f/k/a Wendy Wasserstein's nanny) character about the appropriate celebration of Martin Luther King day, involving a visit to the "MLK white sale at Bed, Bath, & Beyond." Attention to detail is everywhere, with banners hanging in the theatre lobby celebrating Putnam's athletic achievements and announcing club meetings.

The problem is that the show is too damn long. This would be an extraordinarily funny 50-minute half of a pair of one acts. Indeed, it's the opposite of the standard Broadway musical, where you can't wait for the singing and dancing to commence, taking you away from a frequently tired book. Here, you want the singing and dancing to stop so you can get back to the book (which deservedly won a Tony). Indeed, the songs, with a couple of exceptions ("My Magic Foot," "My Unfortunate Erection") are utterly bland and unmemorable. Would that this had been the first half of a night, with the ensemble playing different parts in the second half (say, in a play about elementary school plays), we would have had one of the funniest nights on Broadway in a long, long time. Instead, we get a mere trifle. It's worth seeing, especially for the Bee-obsessed among us, though I woulda been disappointed had I paid full price.

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