By Maggie Doherty
The Masquerade Musical Theater Company may have found its new star director. Making his directorial debut this past weekend with "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," Ryan Zatcoff proved that he can work wonders with two essential ingredients: a little bit of politically incorrect humor, and a wickedly talented cast.
In what is easily the best Masquerade show I've seen in my years at Hofstra, Zatcoff teams up with musical director and Hofstra graduate, Mark Sanderlin, to produce a winning formula of strong voices and zany characters. A show within a show, Spelling Bee centers on a group of misfit adolescents competing for the title of Putnam County Spelling Bee Champion.
After an upbeat introduction song and some one-sided romantic advances by the moderator and judge, Rona Lisa Peretti and Vice Principal Douglas Panch (Katie Hoffman and Colgan McNeil), the Bee is underway. Also participating in the Bee are four audience members who get to try their hand at spelling under the direction of the actors, just to spice things up (as if the show needed it).
Mitch Mahoney (Derek Bado), the resident ex-convict, is serving his community service time as the reject comforter, handing out juice-boxes and hugs, and delivering some too-hood-for-this attitude. He also graces us later on with his Christina-esque riffing skills. I'm hooked.
Picture every stereotype imaginable in a group of spelling bee competitors, and you have the cast. We have Olive Ostrovsky played sweetly by Alexis Di Gregorio, the small-and-meek dark horse for the win with mommy and daddy issues. We have Macy Park (Brittany Fuerstenberg), the slutty-schoolgirl overachiever who "Speaks Six Languages" but just may crack under too much pressure.
We have Chip Tolentino (James Monahan), the sharp-tongued boy scout nerd who sings like a rock-star. (His solo was entitled "My Unfortunate Erection," by the way, the subject of which got him eliminated from the bee far too soon). We also have the metal-mouthed pigtailed lisper Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Jamie Cook). She's adorable, but you would think a girl with two overbearing dads would send her out of the house better dressed.
Ryan Smith's Tom Cruise, I mean Leaf Coneybear, is just hysterically bizarre. We're talking a cape, a serious lack of social awareness, and some sort of alien trance he enters before spelling his words. He fits right in. Smith's seemingly effortless transition from Leaf to one of Logainne's fathers is hilarious, and he and Bado make the fathers from Dead Poets Society look tame.
All the spellers did exquisitely, but the show belongs to James McGowan and his portrayal of William Barfee (pronounced "Bar-FAY"). He's like a junior Woody Allen with bigger hair, more food allergies and one functioning nostril. His signature move is spelling out his word with his foot, which of course gets its own song ("Magic Foot"). The technique is flawless, and he promptly responds with "I know" after hearing that he is correct. He wins, literally and figuratively.
What makes Spelling Bee so consistently funny are the improvisational bits. Nothing looks staged or rehearsed, it all flows as if it's a true, live spelling bee.
Zatcoff's unwillingness to keep the show PG yields perfect results. Even when the Bee gets sensitive and Olive sings an imaginary confrontational duet with her parents, humor still reins. Completely self-deprecating and in no way overindulgent, as student-run shows sometimes are, Spelling Bee understates the talent of its cast, making it shine all the more.
(Laura Molinari)