I’m trying, I’m really trying to be a more well-rounded person. This includes things like going to the theater with my girlfriend on a Wednesday night instead of getting drunk at local Mexican restaurants and stumbling home with a belly full of tequila and free (read: foul) tacos. One of her favorite plays is winding down its twelve-day run in Orange County this weekend. It’s called Spring Awakening. It ran on Broadway from December of 2006 until January of 2009, and has been touring nationally since.
Copying from Wikipedia, the story is set in late-nineteenth century Germany, and concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of sexuality.
Having someone talk-up a production so much usually leads me to be disappointed by the resultant viewing experience. So, I kind of ignored Nicci as she tried to play me a YouTube clip of the original cast. That said, I really enjoyed the show.
Musically, the play was one of the best I have heard. The songs were composed and arranged by Duncan Sheik (who is most-definitely not the kind of songwriter I enjoy), so it’s not presented in your typical Elton John or Rodgers and Hammerstein style. There were a lot of fun, upbeat rock numbers, which were tempered by a series of soft and somber tunes. The melodies (with the exception of one or two numbers, such as “Whispering” in Act 2) were all enjoyable. They played with dissonance a lot, which I like. A number of cast members had very strong voices (Ilse, Moritz, whoever the youngest girl was). The male lead’s voice was a tad nasal and breathy but it still worked.
Visually…well, it’s not a huge production like Wicked so there aren’t elaborate sets, but the rustic, stripped-down design worked well. A few audience members were actually seated on the stage to fill-in for what were supposed to be the actors’ peers. The actors and all the ensemble members were peppered amongst the audience when they were not at center stage.
Although I quickly learned that it was intentional, I was confused and slightly perturbed by the use of microphone stands and wireless microphones by the cast during musical numbers. It asked the crowd to view the show more like a concert than theater. As modern and fresh an idea as it is, it was a hard adjustment to make. That said, it’s definitely something I haven’t seen in a production before, so the artistic director deserves credit for that.
Other than that, the only disappointment was that the sound in the room was a bit off at times, and multiple characters singing simultaneously were drowning one another out into a kind of pretty (but unintelligible) mush of song.
Because my frame of reference is so small, the only way for me to approach the second act of the show is to compare it to a heavy modern theater piece like Rent. I thought that in Spring Awakening the comedy relief scene was too overt. Nicci asserts that you need lighter moments to break the tension sometimes. I feel like if the intention is to attack heavy issues, you just have to go for it and hit them as hard as you can, even if it turns out morbid and everybody leaves feeling terrible. Then again, Nicci knows way more than I do about musical theater so she’s probably right.
There’s not much else I can say about Spring Awakening. I liked it! That’s three plays in a row I’ve seen that I enjoyed. After growing up a few miles from Broadway and being subjected to stuff like Cats, Chicago, Mama Mia and Beauty And The Beast, it’s nice to know that there are productions out there that won’t leave me feeling like a 60-year-old Jewish woman.
Also, there’s a boob involved.
