“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at New World Stages (Photo: Joan Marcus)
William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s delightfully quirky musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has returned to New York in a dream-come-true revival directed by Danny Mefford at New World Stages. A full-hearted, belly-laughing confection from the early 2000s, this new production of Spelling Bee swoops in like a big hug from an old friend, reminding us of everything we fell in love with two decades ago.
Sheinkin has made some minor, incisive changes to keep the musical in step with the current time, the most apparent one centering on the character of Mitch Mahoney, the comfort counselor who is now a personal trainer, rather than the authors’ problematic idea of an ex-convict. Otherwise, the revival, in both look and feel, stays pretty faithful to how the musical was originally presented.
Which I mean as a compliment. Finn’s score, particularly with those iconic Michael Starobin orchestrations, sounds spectacular as played by Elizabeth Doran’s band. The gymnasium set by Teresa L. Williams and Emily Rebholz’s costumes perfectly situate us in the present without losing the rich color palette and youthful sense of recognition from whenever we, too, were in such a gym at such an age.
The casting (by Geoff Josselson Casting) nails the trickiest feat: finding nine diverse, hilarious performers to populate the wide swath of characters in this ensemble. It would be easy to call everyone out individually – and they deserve it – but, for the sake of brevity, I’ll mention just a few.
When Jasmine Amy Rogers, fresh from her star-making turn in BOOP! The Musical, first appears as Olive Ostrovsky, her range immediately jumps out. Rogers’ Olive is somehow even more withdrawn and shy than Celia Keenan-Bolger’s in the original cast. Even when she’s making jokes, she’s still kind of nervous about how they’ll land and swallowing them back down as they come out. It’s the complete opposite of Betty Boop and proves, even more definitively, that Rogers has the juice.
Kevin McHale, in some ways, has the tallest order – Dan Fogler won a Tony for playing William Barfée and his interpretation is hard to shake. It helps that McHale is not at all the same “type” as Fogler, so his physicalization of Barfée’s “magic foot” isn’t the kind of belly-and-ass twist that Fogler mined to such great success. McHale’s feels like there are more stakes in his actually writing the word with his foot. He also finds a stuffed-nose vocal quality that lends itself to some hysterical line readings.
Lilli Cooper, though, has packed the entire show up in Rona Lisa Peretti’s handbag and is taking it home with her. She has never looked or sounded better. And, even including the raucous farce POTUS, she’s never been funnier. Her delivery of a simple “okay” had me laughing for way too long. Most remarkably, though, you see the past champion in Cooper’s Rona and you see how she used to be one of the little freaks she’s now shepherding. It’s still there, that inner child, like it’s still there in all of us.
The production isn’t all perfection – so what? “Pandemonium” doesn’t reach its titular level and the dumptruck of skills Marcy Park displays during “I Speak Six Languages” here feels more like a Tonka. At the end of the day, it’s a complete joy, small faults included.
This is the first New York revival of a William Finn musical since his passing in April. It’s a reminder of what made him one of the greats: his wicked sense of humor, his endless heart, and his knack for grooves. I really hope this revival runs for years so I can pop in whenever I need a dose of Finn.