Spring Awakening

I don’t tend to research shows I have never seen until after I have watched them. Rather I prefer to watch them as an opening night member of the audience, fresh and with no expectations. Therefore, all the way though this musical based on the play by German playwright, Frank Wedekind, I was trying to date its origins, which to me were very reminiscent of 1950’s Britain, the period of my early upbringing. To my amazement my subsequent research reveals it was written in 1891 but not performed until 1906. Clearly little had changed in the intervening years regarding attitudes towards puberty and sex education. Oh boy have we moved on in the last 60 years.

Spring Awakening attacks the sexually oppressive attitudes of the 19th century and tells the story of a group of teenagers on their journey through puberty. At times a pretty uncomfortable watch as it depicts subjects from homosexuality, masturbation and erotic dreams to the first experience of intercourse, which would explain why this play was often banned wherever it was staged from Germany to New York. A brave piece of work for the early 20th century. This rock musical version by Duncan Sheik with lyrics by Steven Sater was first produced on Broadway in 2006.

The stage setting was simple genius at its best, with a low-level rostrum for the main scenes with different levels of raised rostra at the rear and two rows of ‘school’ chairs stage right positioned at right angles to the audience, where the actors sat sternly in character during their non-participating scenes. The orchestra (or band) being placed unobtrusively, but sill in full view stage right. And the rear wall consisted of blackboards with a mixture of school work and some explicit graffiti, the meaning of some of which became apparent during the progress of the action. It worked so well It would be difficult to image a better laid out set for the purpose.

Lighting and sound by Mary Beth Sewell and Luke Perry respectively were hardly noticeable, which to me is always a good sign, because you only really notice them if there is a special effect or they are not working properly. So well done guys. However, I didn’t quite work out why some numbers were sung with handheld and some with worn mics? It did however lead to some very clever and amusing stage effects when other members of the cast produced handheld mics for the singers from some well-choregraphed, unexpected and humourous places as if it was part of the plot! Very clever!

Costumes had me fooled in trying to date the play’s period setting and the best I can say is they were fairly nondescript with a touch of the old fashioned, especially with the boys in braces and the adult costumes reminiscent of the mid-20th century. It definitely didn’t scream early 20th century!  But this actually worked well and gave the whole piece a timeless look about it. Nice touch for them all to do the last scene in modern dress, it put everything into 21st century perspective.

The band under the leadership of Tim Brewster was, as per usual, absolutely top notch with some old familiar and reliable faces amongst its number - it needed to be as the musical numbers were extremely complex at times. Musical director Kate Brewster had her work cut out bringing the narrative numbers up to such a fantastically high standard achieved by all the young actors. Sadly, I’m afraid even as I write this the day after my visit, with the possible exception of a couple the actual numbers have failed to stick in the memory, but the emotion and passion she pulled out of this young cast with their delivery was exceptional.

The directors, Leanne Lyndsey White and Frazer McDonald, I have watched and admired as performers for a couple of years, but as directors they have moved into a different league. Many more experienced directors could learn a lot from these two. The superb choreography of movement, the blocking, the stage layout as mentioned above, the control of the young cast whether sitting in their school chairs or participating in a scene and the sheer guts to tackle some of the explicit sexual scenes head on without flinching was directing at its very best. What came from the original production and what was their own input I have no idea, but the attention to detail was sublime and it worked on every level oh so well!

Now where do I start with this cast? Let’s get the negative out of the way. From an age point of view, I can see that picking the correct age for the cast was a little bit of problem. The original play puts them in their early to mid-years of puberty but I can see that was hard to cast from the available pool of actors, so the age range was stretched perhaps more than might have been ideal. That said the older actors certainly took advantage and thus brought that little bit more experience to the table.

Josh Pugh is a natural leading man who certainly has a bright stage future ahead of him, confident with great presence and an excellent voice. He was pretty much faultless as Melchior Gabor, the leader of the pack whose confidence and ‘comparatively’ extensive knowledge is much admired by the other pupils, but because of it is ultimately doomed.

Kirsty Newman, besides having a voice to die for is no slouch in the acting department either. As Wendla Bergman, the naïve girl whose mother is too embarrassed to tell her the facts of life, which ultimately leads to her tragic death, she trod the fine line between her awakening sexuality and innocence with some considerable skill. Not an easy thing to do.

Samuel Robinson as Moritz Stiefel, a sensitive youth distracted from his studies by his incomprehensible sexual awakening was probably my standout part. His teenage angst was beautifully played and his emotional acting of his songs showed a total understanding of what he was portraying.

Kate Brewster as Ilse Neumann who had escaped an abusive father was another excellent actress with a great voice and powerful stage presence, the perfect person to lead the company in the final number, The Song of Purple Summer.

Charlie Hammond (Hänschen Rilow) and Luke Bates (Ernst Röbel) displayed consummate skill as the two gay adolescents discovering their own sexuality. First time I’ve seen two teenage boys kiss passionately on stage and I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to react to that. However, they pitched it with expert humour and sensitivity and were totally believable. Brilliant piece of acting.

Lily Barnes played the abused Martha Bessell with great understanding and insight into a loser with diminishing confidence receiving no help from authority and derision from her class mates over her crush on Moritz.

Shannon Wilmot and Richard Leveller were to be commended for playing every adult part, demonstrating a great range of characterisation and emotion between them, often scary, definitely humorous at times and sometimes extremely sensitive. No easy task. Their scenes as grieving parents were extremely well done and all their various characters totally believable. I particularly liked the smooth change of costume and character – frequently on stage in front of the audience all without apology or a false step. Great job, well done.

Demi Lenette-Dawson (Gertrude Zirschnitz), Akelia Moxam-Black (Odetta Lämmermeier), Grace Craddock (Thea) and Laura Dorsett (Anna) gave what can only be described as great support to the rest of the cast with their various cameos and singing roles.

Those who know me well will tell you that one of my well-worn phrases is ‘never underestimate the young.’ If you want proof of what I mean then I can find no better an example than this production of Spring Awakening. This was youth theatre at the top of its game. It certainly throws a gauntlet down to every other youth group. On second thoughts, forget the word ‘youth!’

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