Spring Awakening
From a book and lyrics from Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik, Spring Awakening is a combination of a rock musical that meets up with adolescent sexuality. Based on the 1891 German play by Frank Wedekind with the same name, we meet teens from 19th-century Germany, trying to understand life and their new sensual desires they never experienced during puberty.
We encounter eleven teenagers on stage, starting with Wendla Bergmann, an adolescent who questions her mother about how babies are born after hearing an older sister has again birthed a child. Wendla is at the age of curiosity and feels her mother hasn't provided the mother-daughter life lessons she needs ("Mama Who Bore Me") as she enters womanhood. Feeling uncomfortable with the promiscuous questioning, she tries to avoid answering, but Wendla insists. Having conception conversation in the 1900s wasn't a common practice, so her mother only told her that a woman must love her husband with all of her heart to conceive a child.
The scene switches to us witnessing four young girls, Martha, Thea, Anna, and Ilse (Mana Who Bore Me, Reprise), who also appears upset with their mothers' lack of providing them with knowledge. Then, we get a similar look at teenage boys sitting in their Latin class, where a strict teacher, who's placed the fear of God in them, has them reciting Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro from their studies. They have difficulties focusing, as they can't comprehend why they have unusual and abnormal sexual desires daily.
The teacher then approaches Moritz Stiefel and chastises the nervous and anxious lad for sleeping in class. Moritz, who has been fighting erotic dreams that make him go insane, is saved from the teacher's wrath by his classmate and friend, the rebellious Melchior Gabor. Melchior, who the girls adorn, is the brightest student at the academy. Still, the institution condemned his radical views about the school and society, as he expressed his intent to change things ("All That's Known").
Spring Awakening expresses adolescents' fascination for physical intimacy ("Touch Me"), discussing feelings about homosexuality, mental, physical, and sexual abuse, incest, suicide, conception, and abortion.
Porchlight Theatre's Spring Awakening is an eye-opening look at the challenges teens face maturing from adolescence to adulthood. This growth is more complex when you add that Nineteenth-Century Germany and the current politics, culture, and society condemn the appropriateness of examining sexual adolescence.
““Thus, our society has passed from a period which was ignorant of adolescence to a period in which adolescence is the favourite age. We now want to come to it early and linger in it as long as possible.” ”
There is an article entitled Suicide, Sex and the Discovery of adolescent in Germany, written by Sterling Fishman, where he discussed young playwright Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening, describing it as a bomb that fell on the middle-class society. Fishman attacks the German culture, calling them hypocrites for not dealing with the sexual problems of adolescence and the facts of life rather than focusing more on German history.
All of the original 2006 musical scores are included, which will still stun those middle-class parents with embarrassment. It would be interesting to see a parent's reaction to this performance with their adolescent teen. As we grow into adulthood, we tense to be aloof, avoiding sharing the awkwardness of adolescence. Nevertheless, these songs (Touch Me, The Word Of Your Body, I Believe, I Don't Do Sadness, Left Behind) and one of my favorites, "Totally Fucked," will speak to the soul of teens trying to find their way.
Spring Awakening challenges us to remember our youth, hoping we will "teach up a child" and instruct future generations. But unfortunately, technology has eliminated the need to discuss the growth to adulthood with our children, who can easily find it on any television programs or social network outlets.
Spring Awakening is a rock-out adolescent break-out session that hits all the marks when it comes to understanding the quandaries teens face. The overall performance of the combined cast was solid, and the singing was upstanding.
Spring Awakening (German: Frühlings Erwachen) was German dramatist Frank Wedekind's first major play. It premiered at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and critics had issues with its sexually content. In addition, due to its controversial subject matter, the play has often been banned or censored.
Let's Play Theatrical Review Recommends Spring Awakening at Porchlight Theatre.
Porchlight Theatre
Spring Awakening
Book & Lyrics by Steven Sater
Based on a play by Frank Wedekind
Music by Duncan Sheik
Now Extended Through June 2, 2022
