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SPRING AWAKENING
Review

SPRING AWAKENING

February 11 2010

SPRING AWAKENING Sydney Theatre 10 February-7March, 2010. Photos by Brett Boardman

SPRING AWAKENING scored 11 Tony nominations in New York in 2007 and won eight. It also picked up four Drama Desk awards; indeed the US critics fairly hurled nominations and awards at the show. And it’s just been nominated for two Oliviers in London for the West End production. Yet it’s difficult to believe that the much-publicised, much-hyped and long-awaited Sydney Theatre Company production could actually be the same show.

Maybe 2007 wasn’t a particularly good year on Broadway? Nope: the other nominees were Grey Gardens, Mary Poppins and Curtains. While the last named might not be familiar to Sydney it ran for 15 months and was well regarded and patronised. In other words, Spring Awakening had some decent competition. It’s named by a number of people of sound judgment and experience as their favourite score, best lyrics etc in modern musical theatre; so why did the first half leave me catatonic with boredom?

Possibly it was because it took an awfully long time to crank up, despite much colour and movement from the enthusiastic cast. Newcomers all, picked from an open audition of 1400 hopefuls, the singer-dancers may have been nervous, despite a good run of previews to get them in the groove. Their inexperience may also account for why many of them chewed the lyrics into an unintelligible sludge before spitting them out: the lyrics are a particularly crucial element in this literate show.

On the other hand, the laborious scene- and character-setting could have been accomplished in an hour rather than an hour and a half, so that didn’t help either. And the various creative elements of the production also seemed at odds.

Spring Awakening is an adaptation of the 1891 play by Frank Wedekind that was so shocking to bourgeois Germany it was banned for decades. The musical version overlays the dark take on rural teenage life with a score that is steeped in Cobain-grunge and drenched in emo references; and how better to depict adolescent angst, pain and agonized joy than through the descendants of Seattle punk? Curious then, that the choice – presumably by director Geordie Brookman – was to go for a poppy, boppy High School Musical style. It doesn’t so much undercut the music and lyrics – and the unfolding story – as cancel them out.

SPRING AWAKENING

As the main topics under examination are the age-old teenage perennials of sex, masturbation, love, school and existential misery, it may be as well (for nervous parents) that they are so chirpily portrayed. Even child abuse, rape, suicide and back street abortion get the peppy and/or sentimentally lugubrious treatment normally associated with the Entertainment Centre and school eisteddfods.

The first half closes on the young hero, Melchior, and heroine, Wendla, having their first ever sex while surrounded – even if only in spirit – by their schoolmates. And as the sex act by these two innocents is depicted with unlikely knowingness and expertise, this disjuncture is particularly weird. To that point Andrew Hazzard and Clare Bowen had done tremulous adolescence rather well, but their hoary coupling had more in common with the plain brown wrapped DVDs that were the stock in trade of ACT smut merchants than the first fumblings of trembling youth.

Visually, the influence on youth culture of such contemporary faves as Dancing With The Stars and other “reality” shows is obvious in this production. No wonder the cast was so at home on breakfast TV when they merrily bowdlerized Spring Awakening’s biggest number in the quest for the yoof audience. It’s a powerful, satirical showstopper led by Melchior when he realizes his life is genuinely in tatters. The song, You’re F*cked, starts with him suddenly understanding his predicament and announcing “There’s a moment you know, you’re f*cked” and it goes on to describe the situation known to everyone who’s ever been a teenager. On the morning show it was rendered as “You’re stuffed” and still the lemon-lipped show host snorted into her coffee and announced she wouldn’t be taking her kids to it. And that’s the problem with compromise.

Nevertheless, the production came together and, within its limitations, hit its straps in the second half. There are some beautiful moments of choreography (Kate Champion), particularly in a genuinely sexy and lovely scene between two gay boys, and the relentless merriment subsides somewhat to allow the underlying relevance and emotion to come through. The set and costumes echo the disjointed theme of the direction however, and are distracting in their jarring oddness. The same goes for the band and their arrangements. The final cock-eyed moment was, ironically, the finale, when the cast gathers to celebrate their survival and hope for the future – well, that’s what it sounds like and they’re all grinning happily. However, it turns out the song is actually a paean to lost youth, in particular the three tragic deaths already witnessed, and the ghostly exhortation is to their friends to live, be happy and not mourn them; in the style of Livvy and John in Grease. Yeah, right. There’s a moment you know, you’re f*cked.

 

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