by David Pierce
Iowa City - Delightful. Causing delight, charming. Used in a sentence:
The Iowa City Community Theatre’s (ICCT’s) production of The 25th
Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, playing February 27 and 28 and March 1, 6, 7, 8
at the Johnson County Fairgrounds is absolutely delightful.
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| The cast of Spelling Bee. |
Delightful. D-E-L-I-G-H-T-F-U-L
I did that without even using my magic foot, writing it on
my arm, saying it to myself, or any of the other spelling tricks the characters
in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee use to spell the challenging (and
sometimes not so challenging) words they’re given in their quest to be the
champion of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Where to begin when talking about a production this good? How about with this:
The characters in the play are caricatures, stereotypes used to convey a quick
impression. In the hands of an unskilled cast, that could be a bad thing. But
in the hands of this cast, those stereotypes become living, breathing human
beings, human beings with hopes and dreams and fears and worries. In the hands
of this cast, you quickly see past the stereotype to the person within.
