Spring Awakening, a controversial new musical by Grammy-nominated recording star and Jonathan Larson protégé Duncan Sheik, is currently playing to thousands of curious spectators and sold-out crowds since its ascent to Broadway in 2006. It boasts of a pop-rock score and a bright new cast that fills the stage with such freedom and electricity. It’s a tale of sexual awakening in a time that forbade it, of a groundbreaking, revolutionary vibe that radicalized society’s conservative perception of the youth in the 1890s.
I was fortunate enough to catch it during a matinee show on New Year’s Day. It was to mark the end of my musical extravaganza in the Big Apple. I confess, I was a bit hesitant to surrender the opportunity to watch A Chorus Line in place of Spring Awakening. My theatrical quotient was leaning towards the former, but the latter sparked an interest in me unlike any other. It was a calling vision that hoisted itself on 49th street – one that I passed a bounty of times during my aimless wanderings in the streets of New York. And just like any other Curious George, I went with my gut feel and took a risk. And, by God, it was more than worth it.
Based on Frank Wedekind’s German play that was actually banned from being staged, Spring Awakening explores the lives of three unique individuals: Wendla (Lea Michele), a bewildered young thing who is distraught by the mystery of her conception into the world; Moritz (John Gallager Jr.) who is confounded with reveries of mysterious "blue legs" and faces the shame and possibility of being a school dropout; and Melchior (Jonathan Groff), an unscrupulous, non-conforming Socrates of his times who becomes the pivotal catalyst to the other two’s resolution of their individual innermost conflicts and "spring awakenings."
The plot makes for simple storytelling to the average Juan de la Cruz. But the themes that the twists and turns of Spring Awakening navigate are not. Innocence lost, sexual awakening, nonconformity, homosexuality, suicide, domestic abuse, and the many other challenges of growing up are wonderfully depicted by the music of Duncan Sheik and the storytelling of Steven Sater.
While there is a considerable amount of dialogue in Spring Awakening, director Michael Mayer follows the tradition of Rent in letting the music speak for itself. Unlike its Tony and Pulitzer Award-winning contemporary, though, or its actors’ reliance on Madonna mics, Groff and company draw regular microphones from their wonderfully made period costumes in rendering the audibly scintillating tunes of the show. At first, the concept seemed queer and a tad bit cheesy. But four songs into the two-act musical, the idea began to sink in as reminiscent of an energy-filled rock concert where the youth forego all reservations and scream away.
Like the hormones of a 13-year-old on the verge of adolescence, the energy of the actors was inspirational and feverish for the most part as they belted and moshed to tunes like The Bi*** of Living and Totally Fu******. Likewise, the choreography of Bill Jones was sharp and provocative, with the actors oftentimes caressing their bodies with longing. Personally, the best part of Spring Awakening, aside from Christine Estabrook’s and Stephen Spinella’s noteworthy portrayal of the fiendish adult women and men of the play, was the overall production in terms of scenic and lighting design.
The stage was fairly simple – a square wooden platform that was hoisted by ropes at some point of the musical and adjusted to reveal a pit that was utilized by the actors on occasion. On both sides of the stage were bleachers in which members of the audience were situated for the duration of the musical. The actors would sit among this lucky lot in between scenes instead of waiting backstage, and decoy actors in were planted among the audience members to eventually offer some mode of vocal support to the actors onstage. There is also a staircase located in the downstage area in which the actors either wait or perform their respective numbers. This also becomes a key ingredient to a graveyard scene that covered the stage floor in smoke that eerily crept towards the audience like an invisible hand. But of course, the best aspect of Spring Awakening was the lighting design. It was a spectacle to behold apart from everything else. The lighting in Spring Awakening is as the choreography is to Bob Fosse musicals: brilliant and transformative for a minimal stage, it provides feasible transitions in between and during scenes.
Overall, Spring Awakening is daring, revolutionary and praiseworthy in so many ways. The production was strong on all fronts, save for a petty complaint that I had from sitting so close to the front row orchestra. Alas, I’d rather not spray it – I mean, say it – out loud. It was the perfect ending to my theatrical excursion to the Big Apple and something I will definitely look forward to catching again in the near future. For the sake of Legally Blonde, The Pirate Queen, and Les Miserables where Lea is slated to appear as Fantine, the countdown begins.