The nerds have been having their revenge for a few decades, and Stephen Karam introduces three more in Speech and Debate, now filmed as he’s adapted it from his snappy play. (To rent or purchase the film on iTunes: http://apple.com/SpeechAndDebate).
Diwata (Sarah Steele) is the aggressive—let’s say pushy—member of the trio. Howie (Austin P.Mackenzie) is gay and frustrated after having proposed a gay student association to the small town, repressive Oregon school board and been turned down. Solomon (Liam James) is fed up with being told the issues he wants to report on for the school paper are too controversial. He’s also upset about not being accepted at the school to which he only recently transferred. Worse, he’s a non-person to the beautiful blonde all the boys covet.
To boost their morale, Diwata, Howie and Solomon decide to form the school’s heretofore non-existent Speech and Debate Society. Initially, they train for a statewide competition held in Portland, which requires them to master the art of debate from the ground up.
At the contest, not only don’t they do well, but Solomon misunderstands a contest requirement and improvises an embarrassing speech that goes viral back at school. Even before that widespread disgrace, the unsuccessful three go on a drunken Portland spree from which their shocked parents must rescue them.
Karam, of course, has great sympathy for his woebegone focal characters and figures out an eventual three-way worm-turning that won’t be revealed here—except to say it’s gratifying even if the Solomon doesn’t get the blonde or has his revenge on the bruiser who keeps elbowing him in the school corridors.
Along the way to the finale, Karam has a good time with the willfully disruptive Diwata as she auditions for the school Once Upon a Mattress lead (the beautiful blonde gets the role) and as she wallows in the impassioned performance she gave in the previous year’s production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
The playwright/scenarist also shows how three friendless schoolmates eventually befriend each other at the same time as they learn to deal more maturely with their supportive though puzzled parents and as they succeed at handling the school board members, all of the adults played by, among others, Janeane Garofalo and Roger Bart.
Creditably, this is one script where the parents aren’t presented as two-dimensional villains. Okay, School board head (Bart) is something of a chump.
Speech & Debate is the first of Karam’s plays that got him noticed. (Others include the prize-winning Sons of the Prophets and The Humans.) It’s an early play and could be autobiographical even though the playwright was brought up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, not Oregon. A reference to his own youth would explain how heartfelt it is.
The play, a good candidate to be shown for any number of conciliatory reasons in schools, is directed with a combination of muscle and sensitivity by Dan Harris and boasts cameo slots by Darren Criss and Lin-Manuel Miranda (whose Hamilton many young people are viewing thanks to foundation monies). Kristin Chenoweth sings over the final credits.
Incidentally, the origin of the name Diwata is never revealed. Is that the name she was given or did she give it to herself? We never know.