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Bruce Warren as William Barfée and Robin Lee Gallo as Marcy Park vie for first place in Spelling Bee

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Runs through Jan. 15, 8 p.m. Tues.-Fri., 2 and 5 p.m. Sat., 3 and 8 p.m. Sun, Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 N. Palm Ave., $32-$34, 366-9000 or floridastudiotheatre.org.

There are several reasons why The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is only occasionally interesting, but the most important concerns our connection to the bee’s contestants. For some reason, the show’s creators — Rachel Sheinkin, book, and William Finn, music and lyrics — assume that we in the audience will care about a competition among characters we hardly know, who are never given much of a past, and who are mostly caricatures anyway.

Yes, all the contestants are cute in some way (one can’t help but think of certain cartoons in Mad magazine), but if we’re given no reason to favor one over the other, if nothing’s at stake but bragging rights till the next bee, then we’re not likely to feel involved any more than we would if we turned on the TV and saw a football game between two unknown high schools.

Fortunately, we do eventually learn some details: Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre has two gay fathers, Chip Tolentino is a Boy Scout and last year’s winner, and Marcy Park speaks six languages and has perfectionist parents. But since the spelling bee begins almost as soon as the play does, much of this information emerges late, and it never really adds up to much. What’s left is the here-and-now: the onstage hijinks from moment to moment, the songs, the dancing and the jokes. And in these cases, there’s some satisfying material. The character William Barfée entertains us every time he spells words with his feet ­— this involves some tricky choreography — and it’s amusing when Chip Tolentino is caught fantasizing about “Marigold Coneybear,” and has to hide his erection as he tries to spell the word “tittup.” When contestant Olive Ostrovsky sings to her absent mother, living in an ashram in India, a poignant point is made about children’s need for resident parents, and when Asian Marcy Park learns that it’s OK to be imperfect, her joy can be shared by anyone, child or adult, who’s ever had to learn that winning isn’t everything.

Finn’s music is bright and rousing, and his lyrics are at times funny — Chip again: “My unfortunate protuberance / Seems to have its own exuberance” — and, in one song at least, fashionably dark — “Life is random and unfair / Life is pandemonium / That’s the reason we despair / Life is pandemonium”). But there’s also a lot of repetition in the show: a gag about the correct pronunciation of Barfée’s name occurs too often, Olive’s babydoll voice begins to grate after a time, and the show’s central gambit (the challenge of spelling exotic words) gets old long before the finale is sung. In sum, Spelling Bee is more tedious than thrilling, though there’s never a time when it can’t surprise with a flash of insight or an arresting bit of stage business. I’ve seen worse; but I’ve seen better.

There is a sliver of a plot: we are watching a group of adolescents assembled at a high school gym (attractively designed by Nayna Ramey, with basketball hoop, bleachers and banners) where the annual spelling bee, sponsored by Putnam Optometrists, is about to take place. The names of four audience members are called out by hostess Rona Lisa Perretti, and these join the six stage characters as contestants on the onstage bleachers. We’re introduced to “word pronouncer” Vice Principal Douglas Panch from Lake Hemingway-Dos Passos Junior High, and to “comfort counselor” Mitchell M. Mahoney, a convict doing community service work, whose job it will be to escort losers off the stage.

The rules are announced: A speller may ask for a word’s definition or etymology, and may further request that the word be used in a sentence. If a word is misspelled, Vice Principal Panch will ring a bell and the offender will be helped out of the competition. The first contestant — Miss Schwartzandgrubenierre — is called and the first word — “strabismus” — is intoned. And we’re off to the races. Beyond the spelling bee itself, we will see flashbacks of spellers with their parents, we will enjoy songs, and we will witness audience members facing challenges ridiculously easy or impossibly difficult. When a winner is determined, the play will end. The champ will receive a $200 savings bond, to be used toward a higher education.

All the actors are first-rate, though they’re seldom given the opportunity to establish much dimensionality. But in a show about caricatures, the most extreme — Bruce Warren as William Barfée — has a kind of pre-eminence. Warren’s Barfée is a paunchy misfit/egoist/nerd/idiot savant who’s much too old to be in this contest, but not about to lose his chance. His fellow spellers are Rachel Cantor, as the awkward Schwartzandgrubenierre girl, Robin Lee Gallo as polyglot high-achiever Marcy Park, Sarah Jane Mellen as the lovely but oh-so-nasal Olive Ostrovsky, Kavin Panmeechao as priapic Chip Tolentino (and, in a brief appearance, Jesus of Nazareth), and Christopher Totten as persistent Leaf Coneybear. Ashley Puckett Gonzales is no-nonsense hostess Rona, and Stephen Hope, as Vice Principal Panch, is even more humorless and, where the contest is concerned, unbending. Finally, Erick Pinnick as Mitch Mahoney has the deepest line in the show, when he reminds a contestant that pain comes in all degrees, and the pain of losing a spelling bee just isn’t all that severe. Richard Hopkins directs the show with a respectable restraint, not adding any shenanigans outside what the script calls for, and Marcella Beckwith’s emblematic costumes could hardly be better. Stephen Hope is the choreographer, and Tony Bruno, Phyllis Gessler and Jeff Theiss make up the fine onstage (behind a curtain, anyway) band.

My final thought about Spelling Bee is that it’s too flat: in its characters, in its plot, even in its look on the stage. I want more roundness from a musical — or, for that matter, from any show. I want to care about the characters and feel that something important is at stake. This Spelling Bee is cute, I suppose, but when a play is about a competition, and you don’t care who wins, then something important is missing. Without that key element — call it depth, substance or relevance — and without great music or consistent comedy, all that’s left is a passable event with sporadic moments of intelligence and humor. And that’s not nearly enough to place a claim upon our attention.

Photo by Amy Steinmetz

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