Spring Awakening--Live on Stage

It's not your mother's musical.

I listened to and liked the cast album of this show when I bought it at the start of my Year of Musical Thinking, so I was glad when the Broadway tour of Spring Awakening finally made it to Chicago. I saw yesterday's matinee, with a lot of blue hairs (some might say I saw it with a lot of other blue hairs) and a surprising number of young people.

Perhaps the timing was right for this incarnation of the show--Forbidden Broadway makes fun of the idea that people in the Midwest would be offended by the language, themes, and plot points of this show. Offering the production during summer vacation probably allows more teenagers the chance to see it than would have during the school year. This is clearly a show for an angst-ridden audience of young people. I'm an angst-ridden member of the middle-aged, but I still appreciated a lot of this show.

From the time it was written in 1891, Wedekind's play which forms the book of this show has drawn ire, anger, shock, and banning. I believe I had to read it in a theater history class during college because the play holds some kind of lofty position for being so often censured. I imagine there are still audiences that would like to see this show with blatant representation of teenage sex (both gay and straight), masturbation, and references to incest, S & M, and abortion just go away. But that's part of the point of the show, and I believe the reason behind the creators of the musical version choosing this story: these aspects of life aren't going away, and not talking about them doesn't do anyone any good, and can actually do a lot of harm.

I talked about my reactions to the score when I listened to it last July, so I'll try to only talk about my reactions seeing the show live here.

I was caught unawares of the Bill T. Jones choreography in this show (despite the fact that he won a Tony for it). It was very sparingly used, with only a couple of very obvious moments of choreography. I could have actually used a little more. Given the "inner monologue" aspects of the music for this show, I found it at times very static to look at. Although what choreography there was, was again some kind of representation of the characters' inner angst "bleeding" out into the visible.

When this show premiered a lot was made about the actors using hand-held mics. Since this is only for the music, I didn't have a problem with it--again it was a way to separate the outer and inner realities. I did find that it wasn't consistent--which did bother me. There were times when characters sang without a hand-held (but still had the wireless mic used to amplify their dialogue). I couldn't discern if there was a commonality to when a visible mic was used or not used during song.

The cast of this tour is all very good and one of the strongest points of the show. I particularly liked the singing voice of Sarah Hunt (a recent high school graduate) who played Martha. I wished she had more to do in the show.

I was a little confused by the set for this show. It clearly has aspects of a turn-0f-the-last-century school building--perhaps a gymnasium. But the back wall is cluttered with a range of items. Maybe these are intended to be symbols of the cluttered minds of the teen characters, but that point wasn't made clearly enough if it's true.

A friend who attended the show with me, said he felt like this show would be a defining item for a generation--like Hair was, or Rent for earlier generations. He may be right; perhaps too early to determine that. I do feel the way this show communicates (with the music being outside the show, but inside the characters) is a very contemporary method of expression.

I should mention that the Playbill I have shown in this entry is not how the Playbill looked for the Chicago production; there was just the title, no carefully cropped photo of the lead couple copulating. Apparently, we blue hairs can handle the stuff on stage better than in our advertising and print materials.

Spring Awakening
Music by Duncan Sheik
Lyrics by Steven Sater
Book by Franz Wedekind
Opened on Broadway in 2007
Tour Cast: Christy Altomare, Angela Reed, Sarah Hung, Steffi D, Gabrielle Garza, Claire Sparks, Henry Stram, Anthony Lee Medina, Andy Mietus, Ben Moss, Matt Shingledecker, Blake Bashoff, Jake Epstein

Spring Awakening Broadway Cast Album

I probably should have lined up some uber-patriotic show for Independence Day, but instead I'm looking at the first musical by an independent rocker adapting a 19th century German play.

The original Spring Awakening was written by Frank Wedekind in 1891 or so. It has a long history of being banned, censored, reviled and protested over. I don't believe I've ever read the original drama, but Wedekind does make it into theatre history studies for his blending of naturalistic and expressionistic styles and, more so, for writing plays on topics that caused them to be banned, censored, reviled and protested over.

Spring is Wedekind's response to a society which is not honest in its discussion of sexuality. I assume composer Duncan Sheik and librettist Steven Slater are trying to speak to the same type of society in their 2006 adaptation. The musical aspects of the show are somewhat notorious for their explicit language and for being sung into hand-held microphones, both of which are anacronistic for a 19th Century German drama.

I don't care a hoot about that. The presentational style of the songs is a Brechtian devise that works well in this setting, where the songs act as the inner monologues of the characters more than they do as traditional plot-moving devices. The songs break the fourth wall convention to speak directly to the audience. Brecht said that Wedekind was one of his influences in developing his so-called Epic Theatre. So, either Mr. Sater and Mr. Sheik knew that and adapted accordingly, or they dipped unknowingly into some Epic Theater zeitgeist. Either way, bravo for them.

The music takes a little getting used to, and I believe that is because it uses so much guitar in the accompaniment. I'm so used to piano-based music coming from the pit. But there are beautiful tunes and powerful anthems just the same. And the cast performs them admirably.

Theater history lesson over.

Spring Awakening
Music by Duncan Sheik
Book and Lyrics by Steven Sater
Based on the play by Frank Wedekind
Original Broadway Cast Album
Released in 2006 by Decca Broadway
Cast: Lea Michele, John Gallagher, Jr., Jonathan Groff