CASPELLINGBEE

Carter Asef TR 11:00-12:15 The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Positives

1. Having the on-stage band I felt contributed a lot to the play. Not only did they aide in many of the musical numbers within the play, but also they set the mood much like you would expect in a movie sound track. Also, the band even helped contribute to a few of the sound affects within the play such as the drummer replicating the sound of a clock ticking.

2. The play moved along very quickly and held pace throughout the entire performance. Almost every scene was full of energy and excitement and there was rarely a dull moment or a lag in the dialogue. This kept the audience well engaged throughout the whole play.

3. The costumes were very well put together and represented the personality of each character very well. The young girl with a lisp, Logainne, is dressed in childish clothing covered in peace signs and hearts which shows her very free personality full of optimism. Young Mr. William Barfée, the greasy, nerdy, yet flashy and high class individual is clad in clothing appropriate for a casino owner in Las Vegas showing his very self-obsessed and outspoken personality. And the rather awkward adolescent Chip is dressed in a baseball jersey and cap showing his personality as a stereotypical American preteen hitting his awkward years.

Note: upon researching the play a bit, I came across the intended spelling of Logainne’s name. It is pronounced “Logan” but spelled effeminately, as if her two homosexual dads wanted a boy so bad, but settled with blending a masculine name. This is also reflected by the way her dads raised her with their whistles, drills, and tough love. Not quite a full “positive” but I thought it reflected well on the play overall and showed some intellectual content in the play

4. The stage set up was very well done. The stage not only looked like what you would expect out of a public school gymnasium but was very dynamic and created many separate areas to draw attention without having to move any set pieces. Many of the elements found in a typical gym were present such as cheap bleachers, a basketball goal, hand-made banners for the event, and not much that you wouldn’t expect to be available to any public high-school. Also the stage created three main areas for acting to take place. On stage right were the bleachers where most interactions between spellers took place, center stage was the microphone where soliloquies and flashbacks would generally take place, and stage left was the judges stand where most administrative instruction came from. Each spot could separate from the others to bring special attention to certain parts of the dialogue or action.

5. The singing was phenomenal and better than what you would expect from many famous musicians. Almost all of the major characters at some point had an impressive musical number that required them to hit high notes hard, to move their voice with precision, and that required a mastery of their voice’s intonation. Not only were the individual performances stunning from each singer, but there were also many musical pieces that required each singer to harmonies and overlap and the group meshed seamlessly.

Negatives

1. Although the play was supposed to be excessively silly and somewhat farcical, I felt like the play became too ridiculous and attempted far too many cheap jokes. Although the absurdity and awkwardness were funny at many points such as the “unfortunate erection”, at other points the silliness simply seemed immature as if the play was meant to be put on for elementary kids which it clearly was not. Characters like Leaf Coneybear are entertaining at times, however at many other points in the play their childishness feels overdone and simply annoying.

2. It’s hard for almost any play not to offend anybody, in fact it’s hard not to be funny without being at least somewhat edgy, but I feel that at one point this production of the play crossed some lines. The scene that I feel crossed a line was the scene with “black Jesus”. While in my opinion the African American portrayal of Jesus is not offensive, I feel that “black Jesus” was a mockery of a religious figure many people respect. I believe that regardless of one’s religion, one should never attack, devalue, or mock a major icon from another religion. In the play, “black Jesus” was portrayed as goofy, unintelligent, and uncaring as he says to a speller “this is just one of those things black Jesus just doesn’t really care about”. I feel that the bit of cheap humor derived from this gag was not worth all it detracted from the play and I think the play would have been better off had it been more reverent in this scene.

3. Although the musical voices of all the characters were stunning, I found many of the colloquial voices to be very grating. It certainly required talent to speak in the voices of many of the characters, namely Logainne and Leaf, but I felt that overall it fell into the category of overdone, immature, and silly.

4. The play seemed to work too hard to force some kind of serious social commentary onto the audience while still trying to be entirely silly. The “comfort counselor” seemed to be a complete joke throughout the play and I enjoyed the humor he brought to the play through his incongruity with the rest of the play. Just by being a hardened criminal on parole, his interactions with the young innocent children was quite funny up until he tried to become philosophical and talk about how these kids knew nothing about pain and that they needed to learn the difference between big disappointments and little ones. At that point, he lost his silly nature and seemed more like a scary man who just wanted to hurt children. His soliloquy did not seem to contribute anything to the theme and plot of the play and killed the lighthearted mood.

5. The audience spellers were unnecessary in my opinion. They created a slight lag in the plot and did not really contribute to the play itself other than a few cheap and unnecessary jokes. The addition of these audience spellers also confused me. Until after the play, I was not even aware that those people were all audience members and I did not understand why those people were up on stage. The confusion continued when Chip was seen off stage claiming to be punished for being the first to be eliminated, which from my knowledge at that point made little sense because he was not the first speller eliminated. I think the play would have been just as good without the addition of these audience spellers.

Overall I was much more entertained by the other two plays that we watched in this class as they seemed better put together, felt more thoughtful and intellectually captivating, and were less annoying.