Spring Awakening!
Apr. 16th, 2007 07:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emmagrant01I saw Spring Awakening last night, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. I've seen so, so many musicals in the last few years, and it's been a long time since I've walked into a theatre and not known anything about what I was about to see. And then was blown away. I mean seriously, OMG. I'd heard a little buzz that the soundtrack was awesome and that this was the new Rent, but it affected me much more than I expected it to.
Spring Awakening was a play written by Frank Wedekind in 1891, and it focused on teen angst in a small German town in the late 19th century. And perhaps not surprisingly, the angst in the play is utterly and completely relevant to the 21st century. So they took this play and set it to a pop-rock score, and the result is this fantastic musical. The energy of the songs and the cast has this feeling of being barely-contained, like they're all so full of life and excitement (and hormones) that they just might burst. And oh it blew me away! It affected me so much that I couldn't stop thinking about it, and even dreamed about it last night.
The rest is spoilery, just to warn you. I mean seriously -- SPOILERS!
One of the big themes seemed to be that of schools teaching kids fairly useless information, while the adults in their lives withhold the information they really need to know, particularly about sexuality. The one who knows the truth about sexuality is Melchior, the main character, but his attempts to share what he knows end in tragedy -- though not before truly spectacular sex scenes, heh. But that whole idea was really mesmerizing to me, especially when his distraught mother said she couldn't bring herself to punish her son for speaking the truth.
Wendla was heartbreaking in so many ways. The actress who plays her is beautiful, sort of an amalgam of Natalie Portman and Idina Menzel, and her first appearance on stage in a see-through white frock was visually enthralling. She was so incredibly fragile too, and walked this perfect line between being a child and being a woman. All of the actors in the show looked so young that it was nearly shocking at times, but the characters they're portraying are supposed to be mid-teens, so it makes sense.
I was fascinated that the show played with so many themes that the characters themselves didn't know what to do with, like kink, homosexuality, and masturbation. Except for Melchior, none of them quite knew what they were doing, but they were doing what felt good to them. That idea, that without all the trappings of a culture that would simultaneously grant and deny teens access to sexuality, teens would find their own way innocently to the things that work for them. Only Melchior knew that what they were doing was considered "wrong", and that knowledge brought him guilt and sorrow. Of course, it brought some of the others death, so maybe he came out the better for it anyway. The power and importance of knowledge was a big theme, though, and in Wendla's case was brought home almost too strongly.
The sex scene between Melchior and Wendla was incredibly sexy for all of its adolescent fumbling and innocence ,accented by its taking place on what seemed to be a large playground swing, pushed by the other kids. I loved the fact that the second act started with it again, right under the minister's sermon. It had the effect of making us watch it again and think about what it really meant the second time, since the first time we were all distracted by the sight of Melchior's bare ass. (Or I was, anyway.)
Moritz was so nearly paralyzed by everything he was feeling that it was comical, but also a great metaphor for damage the lack of information can actually do. It was really telling that the adults in his life plotted to abandon him and then chose to pin his suicide on Melchior, who was an easy target. Though I have to say the song in that scene, "Totally fucked", was one of the most perfectly placed songs in the show. All of the songs were amazing that way, how they captured anger and energy and hopefulness and despair, and were delivered as if the kids were fronting a punk band in a dingy dive somewhere, just happening to be wearing 19th century clothing. Gah, amazing!
The songs in the first half felt stronger than those in the second, but the story took such a dark turn in the second half that it could just be that I was more distracted by the story then. I loved the fact that a single man and woman played all of the adult characters in the show, as if all adults, regardless of what they say and do, are the same for teenagers.
I have so much more I could say, but I don't have much time. I just felt the need to squee about it a little! And I'm going to buy the soundtrack next chance I get. :-D
Spring Awakening was a play written by Frank Wedekind in 1891, and it focused on teen angst in a small German town in the late 19th century. And perhaps not surprisingly, the angst in the play is utterly and completely relevant to the 21st century. So they took this play and set it to a pop-rock score, and the result is this fantastic musical. The energy of the songs and the cast has this feeling of being barely-contained, like they're all so full of life and excitement (and hormones) that they just might burst. And oh it blew me away! It affected me so much that I couldn't stop thinking about it, and even dreamed about it last night.
The rest is spoilery, just to warn you. I mean seriously -- SPOILERS!
One of the big themes seemed to be that of schools teaching kids fairly useless information, while the adults in their lives withhold the information they really need to know, particularly about sexuality. The one who knows the truth about sexuality is Melchior, the main character, but his attempts to share what he knows end in tragedy -- though not before truly spectacular sex scenes, heh. But that whole idea was really mesmerizing to me, especially when his distraught mother said she couldn't bring herself to punish her son for speaking the truth.
Wendla was heartbreaking in so many ways. The actress who plays her is beautiful, sort of an amalgam of Natalie Portman and Idina Menzel, and her first appearance on stage in a see-through white frock was visually enthralling. She was so incredibly fragile too, and walked this perfect line between being a child and being a woman. All of the actors in the show looked so young that it was nearly shocking at times, but the characters they're portraying are supposed to be mid-teens, so it makes sense.
I was fascinated that the show played with so many themes that the characters themselves didn't know what to do with, like kink, homosexuality, and masturbation. Except for Melchior, none of them quite knew what they were doing, but they were doing what felt good to them. That idea, that without all the trappings of a culture that would simultaneously grant and deny teens access to sexuality, teens would find their own way innocently to the things that work for them. Only Melchior knew that what they were doing was considered "wrong", and that knowledge brought him guilt and sorrow. Of course, it brought some of the others death, so maybe he came out the better for it anyway. The power and importance of knowledge was a big theme, though, and in Wendla's case was brought home almost too strongly.
The sex scene between Melchior and Wendla was incredibly sexy for all of its adolescent fumbling and innocence ,accented by its taking place on what seemed to be a large playground swing, pushed by the other kids. I loved the fact that the second act started with it again, right under the minister's sermon. It had the effect of making us watch it again and think about what it really meant the second time, since the first time we were all distracted by the sight of Melchior's bare ass. (Or I was, anyway.)
Moritz was so nearly paralyzed by everything he was feeling that it was comical, but also a great metaphor for damage the lack of information can actually do. It was really telling that the adults in his life plotted to abandon him and then chose to pin his suicide on Melchior, who was an easy target. Though I have to say the song in that scene, "Totally fucked", was one of the most perfectly placed songs in the show. All of the songs were amazing that way, how they captured anger and energy and hopefulness and despair, and were delivered as if the kids were fronting a punk band in a dingy dive somewhere, just happening to be wearing 19th century clothing. Gah, amazing!
The songs in the first half felt stronger than those in the second, but the story took such a dark turn in the second half that it could just be that I was more distracted by the story then. I loved the fact that a single man and woman played all of the adult characters in the show, as if all adults, regardless of what they say and do, are the same for teenagers.
I have so much more I could say, but I don't have much time. I just felt the need to squee about it a little! And I'm going to buy the soundtrack next chance I get. :-D
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 01:29 pm (UTC)I loved the fact that a single man and woman played all of the adult characters in the show, as if all adults, regardless of what they say and do, are the same for teenagers.
It's like Charlie Brown! Or uh, weirdly, Cow and Chicken, if you ever watched that, where the adults were just LEGS and you didn't realize that until, at the end, the scene panned away and it's just the lower halves of bodies.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 02:15 pm (UTC)