MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The best thing about comedy is its ability to make trauma-dumping a socially acceptable activity. No one is going to tune in to John Mulaney giving straight-talk about his recovery from addiction; package it in an 80-minute standup set, however, and you’ve got an award-winning Netflix special. That same dynamic comes into play at The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee, the riotous first show in The Sandbox Collective’s packed 10th anniversary season.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a musical comedy centered around the eponymous competition, in which six highly eccentric grade schoolers duke it out with each other and their issues to earn the recognition of being the county’s best speller. The Tony award-winning play was written by William Finn (Falsettos) and Rachel Sheinkin, adapted from an improv comedy show by Rebecca Feldman. And it’s from these roots in improv that Spelling Bee earns much of its charm.
The play smartly includes four audience members as onstage “guest spellers,” serving both to create comedic plot points and to ground the main actors’ deliciously weird personalities through “normal” surrogates. When one guest speller is asked to spell a childishly simple word, the main cast suddenly breaks into a song about how life is chaotic, unjust, and nonsensical (“Pandemonium.”) Seeing the actors’ extreme reactions juxtaposed with the guest spellers’ relative nonchalance to the situation underscores how these kids are taking things way too seriously.
There are, of course, valid reasons why the kids are spelling like their lives depended on it, and it’s through their obsessive pursuit of victory that we get to see their humanity. Returning champion Chip Tolentino is the gregarious multifaceted speller-slash-athlete for whom everything seems to come easily, until puberty strikes at the most inopportune moment possible. Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre’s fixation on being the best comes from an upbringing with two overbearing fathers who want her to win at any cost. The overachieving Marcy Park isn’t afraid to show off her many talents, though she’s beginning to question the point of having them all.
His family often tells the homeschooled Leaf Coneybear that he isn’t very bright, even though he has his suspicions that his struggles are largely due to an undiagnosed attention deficit disorder. The ever-sniffling William Barfee has returned to the competition for a shot at redemption, having dropped out last year due to a peanut allergy. Rounding out the six main spellers is Olive Ostrovsky, whose absentee parents made it so difficult for her to get along with other kids that her best friend is the dictionary.
The Sandbox Collective’s production of Spelling Bee features an ever-shifting cast of two performers per role, with different show dates featuring different combinations of actors. For the show this reviewer watched, Chip was played by Luis Marcelo, Logainne by Justine Narciso, Marcy by AC Bonifacio, Leaf by Shaun Ocrisma, William by Joshy Ramirez, and Olive by Angela Ken. Joining them onstage were veterans Liesl Batucan-Rosario as moderator Rona Lisa Peretti, Audie Gemora as Vice Principal Douglas Panch, and Nyoy Volante as comfort counselor Mitch Mahoney.
Director Missy Maramara zeroed in on the characters’ issues, allowing her cast to explore the underlying issues behind their relentless pursuit of excellence fully. That Missy also gives the actors ample opportunity to interact with the audience during intermission reveals more of their humanity than one might initially find in the script. When Olive quietly asks a paying guest to vacate the seat she’d reserved for her yet-to-arrive father, it’s hard not to sympathize with the character.
Performing Spelling Bee under this kind of direction is no small ask, and the cast pulls it off with deftness, for the most part. One particular standout was Justine Narciso, who found a nuanced balance between Logainne’s cartoonish physical work and the weight of her parents’ expectations. The script features a mildly outdated gag where Logainne is exclusively given words with prominent “s” sounds to highlight her heavy lisp. Still, Justine handles it with the nonchalance of someone who’s been trained to power through the bullying.
Joshy Ramirez shines as the emotionally wounded William, who puts up an abrasive front to mask his insecurities. The journey from William’s introduction as the stereotypical obnoxious nerd to one of the play’s most sympathetic characters would not have been as resonant without the many textures Joshy brought to the role. By the time the play closes with its character epilogues, you’ll be rooting for William to have his happy ending.
As the show’s emotional anchor, Olive, Angela Ken delivers strong character work in the silent moments with her constant fidgeting and second-guessing. These mannerisms all build up to her climactic number, “The I Love You Song,” where she laments the absence of a love that feels more real than what her own parents can offer her. Angela sings it with such yearning that it becomes easy to forget that Spelling Bee is primarily a comedy. The performance proves she has the talent to go far in theater, managing to keep the spotlight in a number that also features Nyoy and Liesl as her parents.
AC Bonifacio also establishes herself as a name to watch out for; her Marcy has a slow start due to the impatience written in her script, but AC pulls out all the stops when it comes to “I Speak Six Languages,” showing that she is every bit the multi-hyphenate performer that her character is. Her do-it-all prowess shows she has massive potential in theater and, given the right tools to grow, she’ll have a long, impactful career onstage.
Luis Marcelo and Shaun Ocrisma were entertaining as Chip and Leaf, respectively, though their performances would have benefited from adding a few more layers. Luis’ Chip, for instance, could have shown more bravado at the start to make the impact of his hormonally driven downfall stronger, while Shaun’s Leaf would have elicited more sympathy from the audience had he let a little more sadness in before switching back to his usual happy-go-lucky self. It’s the push-and-pull between their internal and external selves that makes Spelling Bee’s characters so fascinating. That sense of contrast was simmering just under the surface of Luis and Shaun’s performances.
It’s also through these contrasts that we see what Spelling Bee is really trying to communicate with its audiences through all its laughs: that the traumas we endure as children are often expressed through our idiosyncrasies. The thing is, we can’t always recognize trauma for what it is; we often view neuroticism as the cause of our troubles rather than a symptom of something else.
Logainne wouldn’t be so cutthroat about something as trivial as a spelling bee were it not for the incredible pressure she’s endured at home. Leaf wouldn’t be so evasive with his feelings if his own family took them seriously. Marcy wouldn’t be so curt with everyone if she weren’t so exhausted from all the extracurriculars she’s being forced to excel in.
The show closes on a happy note as most comedies do: every character is given a positive epilogue fit for their individual personalities. Those endings, however, wouldn’t have been possible without growth each one of them was forced to experience on the public stage, and without the willingness for them to understand both themselves and each other.
On the surface, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee makes us laugh because the kids onstage are far from alright. But as it plays out under The Sandbox Collective’s take on the material, the musical also asks us for the one thing everybody needs, whether in a high-stakes spelling bee or our everyday life: empathy.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee runs until March 17 at The Power Mac Center Spotlight Black Box Theater at Ayala Malls Circuit, Makati City. For ticket information and updates, follow The Sandbox Collective on Facebook.
