Sexually Speaking, How Far Have We Come? A Review of 2009’s Best New Musical, Spring Awakening
Sunday, April 4th, 2010
“I’m the truth and they say the truth hurts.” – Gucci Mane
By Summer Stanley.
Some things seem never to change, and among those seeming constants are the trials and tribulations that accompany getting older, in particularly the teen angst that goes hand in hand with puberty. Spring Awakening, this season’s eight-time Tony Award Winner including for Best New Musical, though set in 19th-century Germany, may as well have won for “Most Relevant Musical,” underscored by Duncan Sheik’s edgy rock compositions.
With songs such as “The Bitch of Living,” sung by a group of male students in Latin class, and “Totally F…d,” lamented by Melchior, the star student getting expelled, these adolescents, apart from their old-fashioned boots and conservative get-up, may as well be any teenager grappling for the first time with authority, education, sex, and love.
Originally written by Frank Wedekind, a German playwright and visionary, Spring Awakening was put into hibernation after its 1917 New York opening, on account of its intensely sexual content, especially for the time. To this day, a sign still cautions, “AUDIENCE ADVISORY: Spring Awakening contains partial nudity, strong language, and sexual situations.” And rightly so, though by that same token one should be given an advisory for life. Spring Awakening’s content merely reinforces its timelessness.
Though Spring Awakening does tackle the weightier teen issues – suicide, botched abortion, incest, masochism – it isn’t the subject matter that cuts to the heart of this century-old tale. It is rather how the story is gingerly held with kid gloves that encapsulates the innocence with which these young characters confront their challenges.
When a sleep-deprived Moritz (Chase Davidson), due to his late-night penance for what he deems sinful wet dreams, flunks out of school despite all his efforts, the dread he feels at the thought of reporting home to his militaristic father is palpable. Upon being informed by her hysterical mother that she is pregnant, Wendla’s (Christy Altmore) betrayal is matched only by her shock, as she had been told early on that babies were produced through wedlock alone. Hence the hard lyrics, “Mama who bore me/mama who gave me no way to handle things/who made me so sad.”
Because this is a story of youth as it often is, misguided or sometimes even unguided, all of the authority figures in this play are comprised of two actors. One man, John Wojda, along with one woman, Angela Reed, symbolize predominance, tackling the role of overbearing parents, unsympathetic teachers, and apathetic clerics in memorable performances. The choice to vilify authority offers a validating window into what it really means to come of age, to trade one world for another.
The romance between a smitten Melchior (Matt Shingledecker) and an equally besotted Wendla is an apt first love story, moving from all-encompassing euphoria to total heartbreak. D.S.’s lyrics foreshadow the young lovers’ fate with delicate honesty upon their first serenade: “I’m gonna be wounded/ I’m gonna be your wound/ I’m gonna bruise you/ I’m gonna be your bruise.”
Spring Awakening tenderly exposes their young cast, each in their own way victims of their own naiveté, put upon them by those who are older with more knowledge and therefore more power. It is the observation of their struggle for power over themselves renders this play deeply felt, nostalgic, and stunning.
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