Spring Awakening
At Studio 58 until Feb. 24
Tickets: 604-684-2797, ticketstonight.ca
More info: studio58.ca
Daffodils are thrusting through the ground and the buds on the maples are swelling. Fecund Spring is rushing in. But whats happening in the garden and forest pales in comparison to whats happening on the Studio 58 stage.
Spring Awakening was written in 1891 by Frank Wedekind, a German writer whose detractors claimed he wrote dirty, unsavoury plays, but whose admirers, especially Bertolt Brecht, thought he was a genius. Wedekind was so certain that no theatre company would touch Spring Awakening due to its sexually charged content, he published the play himself; it was immediately snapped up by young readers across the country. It wasnt until 1906 that producer Max Reinhardt mounted the play (at the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin) but not without removing Act 3, Scene 4, in which a group of boys in a juvenile detention home urinate or ejaculate together, and Act 3, Scene 6, in which two boys kiss. Act 2, Scene 3, in which a teenaged boy masturbates over the photograph of the Venus de Palma Vecchio, was also excised. Seventy-five years would pass before it was mounted in England.
In 2006, Steven Sater (book and lyrics) and Duncan Sheik (music) turned Spring Awakening into a multi-award-winning rock musical. The conflation of a 19th century tale of teenaged sexual repression and the highly sexualized teenaged culture of the 21st century is astonishing, provocative and often funny. Imagine, for example, schoolboys in short pants, knee sox and grey blazers and the girls in prim cotton frocks (costumed by Marina Szijarto) pulling microphones from their pockets and exploding into, Yeah, youre f***ed all right and all for spite/You can kiss your sorry ass goodbye/Totally f***ed will they mess you up?/Well you know theyre gonna try.
Directed by David Hudgins, this musical is perfect for Studio 58. The performers are barely out of their teens and the energy they bring to the show is explosive.
In the story, Melchior (Riun Garner), an adolescent in a strongly religious, uptight German provincial town, struggles with his burgeoning sexuality as do his friends especially sensitive Moritz (Dallas Sauer). The girls, too, are awakening and eager to understand their bodies new sensations. When Wendla (Lauren Jackson) begs her mother for information about where babies comes from, her mother puts her off with a lot of blather about loving the man youre married to.
Some 20 songs, accompanied by an onstage five-piece band, range from highly percussive to heart-achingly lyrical, and Shelley Stewart Hunts choreography captures all the excitement and frustration these young characters feel.
Its a kind of Romeo and Juliet story with a twist. Garner, as Melchior, is so earnest and Jackson, as Wendla, is so sweetly innocent although one has to wonder when she begs Melchior to beat her.
Wedekind, however, delves well beyond the usual star-crossed lovers theme and introduces, by way of Martha (Erica Hoeksema) and Ilse (Stephanie Izsak), parental sexual and physical abuse. Together they sing the heart-wrenching The Dark I Know Well. Later, the consequences of her fathers sexual interference surfaces when Ilse, now a sex toy for a colony of bohemians, tries to connect with Moritz whom she has always liked. If she hasnt already broken our heart, Izsak is devastating when she bares Ilses unhappiness in The Song of Purple Summer.
Hanschen (Dominic Duchesne) and Ernst (Alex Strong) provide the much-tabooed (in 19th century terms) homosexual element.
Admittedly, Wedekind, Sater and Sheik make for unlikely bedfellows. But Spring Awakening is strangely compelling and, for the most part, wonderfully realized. Director Hudgins could have pulled back on a couple of performances, but overall, this production is so far from the usual fluffy musical theatre fare, that I revelled in it. My guest put it aptly: Brecht with sex.
BTW: the scenes that Reinhardt cut, back in 1906, are back in and more graphic than Wedekind could possibly have imagined.
For more reviews, go to joledingham.ca.
