I saw Spring Awakening last night and I am pretty sure It overtook Wicked as my favorite musical. They are very different plays, hence my being “pretty sure.” Spring Awakening follow teens as they discover life and death, sex, loss, failure. It is heavy. If you are looking for an uplifting evening this won’t be it, but the music was amazing and the story was incredibly powerful. I had chills throughout.
The story and characters were amazingly well written, and although I couldn’t keep all their names straight–it was set in Germany when they had names like Melchoir and Moritz–the story was timeless. With a change of names and costumes the musical could take place anytime, anywhere.
If you want a synopsis of the story you can google it, I was overwhelmed by the experience, so that’s what I plan on talking about.
The set design was simple. There were no props other than two switches that the adults used to beat children and a few chairs; there were no set pieces, just some environmental elements hung on the wall (mirrors, chalk board, art). The orchestra was on stage, as well as about 12-15 people from the audience. I wish I had those seats, it really gives new meaning to the best seats in the house. Because of the simplicity the set it was all about the characters and their stories. That’s one of the reasons I feel like this could be set anywhere. Because I had to visualize their surroundings, I didn’t visualize them in 1880’s Germany. I like that, I like when plays give the audience the chance to interpret the setting and scenery however they see fit. This was a very deliberate choice, I’m sure. It makes the play all the more real, these could be any kids.
The lighting design was breath taking. Because they didn’t use any set pieces, good lighting was necessary to set the mood, and had to work well with nontraditional music. All the songs were set to Rock music, which may not have worked in a classic musical setting, but it worked perfectly here.
It wasn’t like they broke out in song as they went about their lives, but more as if they used song to describe the emotions they were experiencing in a specific moment. Not everyone would be involved in each number, people who weren’t involved would simple freeze while the character described what was going through his or her head. It worked really well; had they tried to integrate very American Rock and Roll with a 1880’s Germany setting in a traditional way it probably wouldn’t have worked. The lighting was used to emphasize the change. The lighting would change drastically between the actual scene and when they would start to sing.
This play was filled with music I would gladly listen to over and over again, and the story is simple, but saturated with emotion and turmoil. [aside]Just had a thought, Let start showing this to high schoolers instead of making them take sex ed. It was much more exciting to watch and a much better explanation of the overwhelming emotions that adolescents experience, although it probably doesn’t jive with the traditional American values public schools try so hard to embrace.[/aside]
If you are in Cincinnati, go see the musical while it is here, If you aren’t, they are touring so check broadwayacrossamerica.com and see if they will be in town this season. I don’t want to say this play was life changing because that’s entirely too melodramatic for my tastes, but wow, just wow.
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