My Short-Lived Spelling Bee History

S-E-S-Q-U-I-P-E-D-A-L-I-A-N. Sesquipedalian. Given to the use of long words. Also describing long words. Also describing itself. I wish it were a more accurate descriptor for myself.

I went to the Lyric Stage Company production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee two weeks ago, and it reignited my lost spelling-bee glory. Imagined glory, at least. To quote Marlon Brando, I coulda been a contender. (Of course, Blogger's spell check program dashes its red underline under "coulda" the moment the fingers type it. It's challenging me: "Are you really serious about spelling?")

One of the best aspects of Spelling Bee, the musical, was how it entered the audience. From the thrust stage and volunteer audience spellers to the trophies hanging around the exits, I felt almost immersed in the spelling competition. What would it have been like to compete in this rigmarole bee, where I might face a word like either phylactery or cow? (The judge's sentence: "Please spell cow.") What if I had gotten sesquipedalian? When I looked the word up online, I realized one of my e's should have been an i. It's always the vowels that trip me up. No trophy today.

Nor in third grade, the first year I remember our class participating in the spelling bee. You rarely hold on to the answers you get right when you're growing up, only your mistakes. Like when I had a test with the word "transparent." Choosing between pictures of a rather masculine-looking mother and a window, I settled on the woman. Maybe I was ahead of my time. But though confident in my spelling skills, acing  vocabulary quizzes every week except for the zucchini incident, I never made it to the top. A minor victory in my third grade class led to my shot at the school-wide bee. They held it in my kindergarten classroom. Perhaps that's why I choked on valorous. When I asked for the definition, I imagined a mountain valley, replete with lush gardens and running waters. Two l's later, the buzzer binged.

Applause for the Clowns

Review: A Little Night Music
Walter Kerr Theater, New York
September 11, 2010

When Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch were announced as the replacements for A Little Night Music, anticipation was high. Isn't it bliss, it seemed, to have two prime interpreters of Stephen Sondheim's work appearing in one of his shows again? Two thrilling moments happened when I returned to the Walter Kerr. The first was a collective hush as the clarinet began "Send in the Clowns." The second was a sigh of relief: Elaine Stritch remembered her lines.

From other reports, this isn't always the case. Time takes a toll on the memory, as Sondheim duly noted in his lyrics. "Remember?" an omnipresent vocal quintet sings as they fill the roles of narrators, servants, a theater troupe. And when Madame Armfeldt sings "Liaisons," recounting the extravagant affairs she held as a young courtesan with kings and dukes, she searches between verses for the next: "Where was I, where was I? Oh, yes."

Now 84, Stritch hasn't lost her spit-and-vinegar attitude, nor her razor-sharp timing. She finds unexpected laughs, with perhaps an ad-lib or two, but also poignancy. Her predecessor, Angela Lansbury, had a crisp, Old World haughtiness camouflaging the tenderness beneath. Stritch seems cognizant of death, that the parade has passed before her eyes. She started on Broadway as Ethel Merman's standby, and what a relief to see the old girl's still got it.

Bernadette Peters was last seen in two Merman revivals, Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy. Though she impressed in an unlikely turn as Rose, Peters is a more natural fit as touring actress Desiree Armfeldt. Her Desiree stays an actress off-stage, even around her old flame, middle-aged lawyer Frederick Egerman (Alexander Hanson, still giving a relaxed but confident performance). But as the inevitability of losing her lover sets in, her facade melts, setting up a "Send in the Clowns" for the ages. Formerly sung by the vulpine Catherine Zeta-Jones, the song now centers on the deep regret of "losing my timing this late in my career."

My opinion of the reduced orchestra and the younger members of the cast has not changed. But the two new actresses's performances alleviate some of the production's Bergman-esque chill with an added dose of comedy, which infects the other players. In place of lavishness, we get truth: from an old woman who winks at death to an actress worried she's past her prime. Make way for the clowns--they're finally here.

The Show Mustn't Go On

Know how Amazon.com loves to sell you great deals you didn't know you wanted? The online seller (that maybe I visit once a day; maybe I have a problem) sent me an e-mail about Nip/Tuck: The Complete Series, daring me to turn them down. But you bought Mad Men, their theory goes, so of course you want Nip/Tuck too.

Oh, Amazon. The honest truth about my relationship with that frothy, overcooked soap opera is that there isn't one. Nip/Tuck and I parted ways seasons ago. Maybe the blame falls on me. I have expectations for TV shows. Like logic and character development. Clearly Nip/Tuck never aspired to the dramatic/nostalgic heights of Mad Men. But halfway through its run, I realized it didn't aspire to much at all. Shock factor, sure. But after separating conjoined twins, Christian and Sean's menage a trois with a prostitute resembling Sean's wife, Julia's near-murder of her mother, Matt and Kimber's drug-addled marriage, Gina's post-climax fall to her death... and of course, the incest... the territory was covered.

Oh right, and Matt was a mime who robbed convenience stores.

Originally the show was outrageous and grotesque, but it didn't take itself so seriously. The fatal move was relocating to Los Angeles, which only magnified its journey toward superficiality. If you're starting from the beginning, don't move with McNamara-Troy. Other TV shows have suffered the same fate when they jumped ship. Weeds began as a jaunty suburban satire, but the call of the Mary Jane blurred the creators' vision. Suddenly, in season four, the show has been reborn in Mexico after Nancy Botwin's drug ring burned her California suburb in a blazing wildfire.

Let's not forget Entourage, which has always been immersed in L.A. superficiality. But when I tuned in again last season, it was as if the creators hadn't felt the recession during their hiatus. Vince's first dramatic challenge was to buy new cars. And after Sushi-gate, it's hard to enjoy Jeremy Piven quite as much. Like Nip/Tuck and Weeds, I cut it off right there. No patch or gum required for quitting.

When I tuned back in this season to see if the groove was back, the hubbub was Vince's hair. Yes, dear readers, the plot revolved around a haircut. The dramatic tension? Movie re-shoots! What will he tell the director? What about his agent? If only Billy Wilder had thought to give Norma Desmond a new bob, just imagine how much greater Sunset Boulevard would be.

The season-changing hairdo. Everything you know is a lie.

TV shows these days jump the shark so easily. How many cast members will sleep together? How many children will have tragic deaths? Countless other shows (Hung, True Blood, Rescue Me, Grey's Anatomy) lost their integrity or never had any and vanished from my viewing schedule. I ask you readers: when did you sense your TV obsession was going downhill?