Seasons of Love
September 15th, 2007 Posted in TheatreSpring Awakening | Eugene O’Neill Theatre
It would be misleading if I ruminated on the complexities of the adolescent angst musical Spring Awakening as if I knew exactly what it were trying to convey. I don’t. And I don’t think it does either. Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s radio-ready score has copulated with a nineteenth century cerebral German drama to give birth to a lovechild of sexual discovery, both liberating and intimidating. But somehow, this mishmash of social taboos in pre-war Germany has met the Dawson’s Creek generation to proudly declare that it doesn’t know what it is trying to convey, frustrating the audience in the very same manner as its conflicted teens.
It appears the producers hired some out-of-work WB casting agents to make that trademark decision of casting 22-year-olds to play 14-year-olds. I daresay the production could have aroused a greater level of provocative controversy closer to that of the original Frank Wedekind play by casting actors closer to the actual age of the characters in question (the youngest cast member is 18), but that would have been too much even for New York audiences and maybe even a little bit illegal (considering what these kids do onstage).
Dawson is played by Melchior Gabor (Jonathan Groff), a heartthrob schoolboy with a lot going on in his mind. He’s the revolutionary of the bunch who professes atheism in a small, religious town and reads Goethe for kicks. In him, we have the image of the sexually “aware” high schooler. He’s the one who knows all the positions and the lingo, explaining them in a handy brochure written for his best bud Pacey, Moritz Stiefel (John Gallagher, Jr.). Moritz is quirky and doesn’t get along with his parents, and when he has trouble accepting the truth about the birds and the bees in Act I you kind of know he will crack before the story’s conclusion. Finally there is Joey, one Ms. Wendla Bergmann (Lea Michele). She is a pretty ingénue who isn’t quite as knowledgeable in the ways of the horizontal polka but she thinks Melchior is dreamy (read: she’s a quick learn).
These three provide the primary storyline of the piece as they fumble their way through discovery and dysfunction, but I was more engaged in the incidental characters who are given story vignettes along the way. We see a bit of Lilli Cooper’s Martha in the group scenes but don’t actually hear from her until the chillingly emotive “The Dark I Know Well.” A building rock-esque ballad detailing the sexual abuse of her greasy father, the song is unaccompanied by any other story development for the poor girl. This is done a few other times in the musical, creating a kaleidoscope of pain for the entire crew. Each one has their own bruises, but they will only offer up glimpses of them along the way.
Sheik and Sater have created an interesting amalgam of Generation Y along the way. They pepper their score with modern details to infer that the coarseness of adolescence in century-old Germany is no different than the awkwardness of today. The kids sing of funny feelings in the gym class locker room and longings to escape to their rooms where they can blare their stereos. These are the more likeable elements of songs that work if you want them to but have no difficulty falling flat if you listen beyond the toe-tapping rhythms.
One of the score’s weaker moments includes what was quite possibly the sole catalyst behind the original cast recording’s “explicit lyrics” emblem, the second act party-fest “Totally F*cked.” It is the show’s windows-down, sing-along tune lamenting those unfortunate moments where there is no escaping a royally screwed outcome. Listening to the song on the album or watching the cast perform an edited take on the Tony awards gave an accurate flavor of Awakening’s in-your-face irreverence. Too bad this bouncy number, replete with jackrabbit cast members pouncing around the stage like they’re holding a private rock party in a suite of the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas, comes directly after the suicide of the show’s most sympathetic character. Even the two adult characters emerge from their disapproving coma and join in on the raucous fun. It is a moment that single-handedly shatters the solemnity of the remaining 20 minutes and leads me to believe it was added only to display the writers weren’t afraid to embrace the f-bomb.
What’s more, there exists a semblance of the emperor’s new clothes syndrome as the audience willingly laps up whatever lyrical slosh Steven Sater puts in front of them. Nowhere is this more evident than in the show’s inexplicable finale, “The Song of Purple Summer.” Children have been beaten. Students have failed. Adolescents have awakened. And (apparently) the story has concluded. So we get a song about wandering crickets and singing butterflies? Duncan Sheik’s lilting melody is coupled with words that, for all intents and purposes, have no immediate connection to the stories we just witnessed. Sater tries to wrap them all up by reconciling human nature to the varied wonders of mother nature, but, alas, lines like “and mares will neigh / with stallions that they mate / foals they’ve borne” are nothing short of bewildering. It tries to make a very depressing musical somewhat uplifting – an error in judgment indeed.
I desired less of a tragic Shakespearian plot. I did want to delve deeper into the lives of those characters who were given one moment to plead their case, never to be heard from again. I was very agitated. But that is the frustration of teenage life. Unable to quantify in a tidy little story with a logical plotline and a glitzy Act I climax (actually, this show does have that… at least the climax part), Spring Awakening is a messy wonder that emerges from its shortcomings flawed yet beautiful.