This evening my cousin Marie and I went to the Drury Lane Theater on the north side of Water Tower Place to see the play Putnam County Spelling Bee. As the title suggests, the storyline revolves around a spelling bee of elementary children set in the Chicago area. It is a musical comedy involving a handful of goofy/geeky child stereotypes and their inner struggles, inquiries and triumphs.
This is the first play Ive attended which lacked an intentional message other than its entertainment value. Being entertained is nice, but Ive become accustomed to walking away from a theater with at least a modicum of contemplation regarding the play I had just seen. But not here. This is akin to watching an episode of Gilligan's Island with a song about a boner thrown in. The characters are well defined and play effectively against each other. The storyline is entertaining and coherent, yet honestly shallow. And the final result is somewhere between clowns in a little car and adults acting like children.
One major part of the play is its audience participation which is determined beforehand, apparently while I was still working my martini, based on volunteers' spelling capacity. The three "winners" of the preliminary spelling contest are then whisked away to reappear on stage as cast members.... and then publicly humiliated during the course of the evening. Glad I stuck with my martini.
There are to my knowledge three versions of this play, depending on the time/evening attended. There is the G-rated childrens version. The Standard version, and the Raunchy version, where spelling bee words include anatomical parts and libidinous activities. I went to the 2pm weekend show and thus wound up in the Standard show, though the Erection Song was quite memorable, particularly its explosive conclusion.
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