...Spelling Bee is a musical that I lucked into a while ago, and saw. Returning to that idealized time of adolescence, it deals with the emotions and insecurities of early teenagers growing up. One must deal with the depression that runs in her family, and the absence of her mother (who is in an Ashram in India.) Another is one of dozens, and suffers from a sort of nervous twitch.
The music itself is good, but not jaw-dropping. It is catchy and clever, and bound together by an effective use of motifs. The amount of egotism that the organizer weaves in through her "Favorite Moment of the Bee"s is astonishing, and quite compelling. I like what I see / Kids acting innocently, she croons, at the energy of the moment and, you can't help but suspect, enjoying the cruelty with which those kids act. One, when told hello, replies "Shut Up." Another responds to "Did you see me?" with, "Sorry, I only paid attention to kids in the top 10."
Yet the kids find their resolution. Through it all, the cast makes histarical jokes; the laughing outweighs the philosophical response, but is balanced by a strong sense of empathy.
I recommend it very much.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I almost saw this on Broadway. The memory of how that didn't work out is still a sore point.
We won their ticket lottery, and were the second to last in the lottery ticket winner line. There were twenty-five tickets in the lottery. We won the right to buy the 23rd and the 24th. The guy in front of us won the 21st and the 22nd. Behind us, with only one ticket, was a young girl who was there with her father. He was visibly disappointed that they had only gotten one ticket. The guy in front of us, on the other hand, only needed one ticket. So he offered to give the dad his other ticket. But the inept lady behind the counter gave the guy in front of us his single ticket, gave the father and his daughter our tickets, and then gave us the ticket that the guy in front of us didn't use and the ticket the girl behind us would have had. So we were to sit in completely different locations in the theatre. I had absolutely no interest in seeing a broadway show without being able to directly share the experience with my wife, so we gave everyone involved a good healthy dose of whatfor and stormed out of their livid. Cor was almost in tears and I was pretty upset too.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)