Last night, the touring company of the pop-rock musical Spring Awakening brought their magnificent show to the Stony Brook Staller Center stage. Being a fan of the music for quite some time now, and having missed its short-lived run on Broadway, I was more than excited to jump at the chance to see this play live. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it and who enjoys going to live shows, however the subject matter is certainly not for children or anyone who tends to blush easily.
The play takes place in Germany in the late nineteenth century and focuses on a group of young people who are realizing their primal desires, yet are prohbited to act on them by their elders. Wendla and Melchior are the Roger and Mimi of Rent in this group, although Wendla can be considered Mimi's chaste younger sister. Wendla knows that babies no longer come from storks, as her mother would have her believe, yet when she asks for further clarification, her mother refuses, leading to consequences that could have possibly been prevented.
Melchior's character is interesting in that he sees life from outside of the box, so to speak. He is an atheist and because of this, he does not let religion rule his sexuality. He believes one should not be ashamed of his or her inherent nature to copulate. He tries to educate his friend, Moritz Stiefel on the birds and the bees, as Moritz is struggling with his "dreams", but this only adds to the increasing mental torture from which Moritz is having a hard time escaping. His lack of sleep begins to affect his studies, which only adds to his misery.
Hanschen is another interesting character, providing additional comic relief when necessary and starring in an interesting scene that you won't forget once you see it. He also harbors a deeper secret but isn't coy about letting it out. Elsa is a bohemian runaway who plays an integral role in the turning point of Mortiz' important decision in Act Two.
At times it became a little confusing, as the actors playing the parts of the parents in the play played the parents of all of the characters within the plot, as well as the educators. But it was easy enough to discern based on the content.
The music, written by Duncan Sheik, was fantastic as expected, especially the scene with "Totally Fuc*ed", (come on, who wouldn't want to see a play in which that is the title of one of the songs), where the company let it all out as the instrumentals and accompanying lights went as crazy as the audience did when it was finished. At times the energy of the actors distracted from the lyrics they were trying to get across, but it seemed that the emotional element was the more important one being expressed.
"The Dark I Know Well" was intense and commanded your action, while "Whispering" was quieter but equally poignant and haunting. The music is deeply touching and backs up the plot well in its ferocity when it needs to demand and tenderness when it needs to convey.
Be prepared if you decide to see this play: there are two scenes that will stay with you forever. One is the afore-mentioned scene with Hanschen, and another exists between Wendla and Melchior that will change how you view the posters and the cover of the CD. They aren't necessarily "bad" scenes, but they are definitely going to embarass you if you are not used to explicit content. The language is also colorful here which is, again, only an issue if that kind of thing offends you.
Else, I strongly recommend this play. The Staller Center was a nice venue with excellent seating, but I'm not sure the acoustics were done much justice here. The lighting was perfect and certainly aided the audience in empathizing with the characters. The only issue I could tell was that the ending seemed rather abrupt. Ends were deliberately left loose to, I suppose, leave us to imagine how events unfold for these characters after we leave them. Yet, the strongest message here is one that cannot go unignored, and that is that sex can be consequential, but ignorance can be tragic.
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