Review: Children’s Theatre delivers an ‘Akeelah’ the audience can root for

Is any honest competition more equitable than a spelling bee?

Size, strength, speed and other physical factors mean nothing. Race and gender are neutralized. The ultimate judge is a dictionary, not a prejudiced or politicized human. You can train, but no one can master every possibility. Luck plays a factor no matter how adept you are: One contestant gets “cobalt” (a mineral), while the next one gets “kobold” (a sprite from German mythology).

We see these factors at work in “Akeelah and the Bee,” Children’s Theatre of Charlotte’s homage to middle-schoolers — especially African-Americans — who have been deterred from using their brains by dangerous home lives, lack of opportunity or ridicule-spewing classmates. On that score, it’s welcome; we too seldom meet such characters onstage or onscreen.

Yet Cheryl L. West’s script closely follows Doug Atchison’s screenplay for the 2006 movie, so it’s uplifting, contrived, touching and unbelievable by turns. For each stereotype it breaks, it reinforces another. In its way, it’s as much a fairy tale as the season-opening “Peter Pan.”

Akeelah Anderson faces all three obstacles above. The play begins with sirens, as she fends off nightmares and clutches a hat belonging to the father murdered by a street thief. Hardworking mother Gail and older brother Reggie, who’s about to start dealing drugs, don’t know how best to help her. Classmates mock her when she turns out to be smarter than they. But when she wins a school spelling bee, the principal introduces her to Josh Larrabee, a scholar who once competed at the national level and agrees to coach her.

Here the clichés begin.

Just as she lost a dad, he lost a daughter Akeelah’s age, so they have to bond not only as coach and pupil but surrogate parent and child. It’s not enough that Larrabee be a cultured man who was one of the best spellers in America; he has to have been cheated of victory by a white boy, whose racial slurs made him lose his temper and get disqualified.

Every character, no matter how unpleasant, must be redeemed. The robotic Asian boy who snubs and sneers at Akeelah, driven by his rigid and racist dad, turns out to be a good kid after all. (His dad has a self-justifying monologue, too.) Even the drug dealer who gets Reggie arrested joins the it-takes-a-village effort to teach Akeelah 5,000 new words. Alcoholism, mutism and criminal charges melt easily away.

The show seems shorter than it is because of director Corey Mitchell’s rapid pacing and the swiftly changing sets designed by Anita Tripathi. And it seems more honest and true to life than it is because of the cast’s commitment.

Tony King’s dignified, intense Larrabee conveys the tension a man feels when he’s spent decades proving himself to people who expected less of him. Kevin Aoussou’s Reggie seems poised on a knife point between reaching upward and capitulating to the thug life. Lakeetha Blakeney’s Gail — kind, ferocious, never despairing — is powerfully real.

The biggest responsibility rests with Kiara Casseus, a sophomore at Northwest School of the Arts, who finds the fire, anxiety, loneliness and tenacity in Akeelah. However corny the material may be, you root for her from the moment she strides onstage.

‘Akeelah and the Bee’

WHEN: Through Feb. 16 at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Sensory-friendly performance at 7 p.m. Feb. 16.

WHERE: ImaginOn, 300 E. Seventh St.

TICKETS: $15-$30

DETAILS: 704-973-2828 or ctcharlotte.org

This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.

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This story was originally published February 1, 2020 at 9:12 AM.