Spring Awakening Performance Review

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Spring Awakening – A New Musical

New York University | Tisch School of the Arts

February 28, 2013

Director: Kenneth Noel Mitchell

NYU’s production of Spring Awakening (2006), originally by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, provided new interpretations of the well-known musical, including thematic and technological additions relating to the 21^st century.

The performance chose to preserve certain aesthetics of the popular Broadway production (which allude to the original 1891 work by Frank Wedekind) while attempting to juxtapose current day trends on the production. A cohesive example of this is the costuming. The cast is split into two groups, the teenagers and the adults. The teenagers all wear costumes consistent with the Broadway show: overly feminine frocks for the girls, and traditional military school uniforms for the boys. The costumes for the adults, however, deviate drastically from the Broadway show. On Broadway, the adults also wore costumes consistent with the 1891 Germany garb; in this production, they were clothed in overt S&M costumes: black/white pleather, corsets, fishnet thighhighs, with gothic make-up to match. This choice highlighted two of the main themes of the storyline well, if only a bit crudely: the isolation of one generation from the one prior, and sexual awakening.

What gave the performance a technological and multimedia angle was the inclusion of half-a-dozen monitors distributed throughout the set. The screens displayed visuals throughout the entire musical—names of each musical number, metaphoric images, and even live feed—as yet another layer of the current era juxtaposed on the original writing. These multimedia layers certainly enhanced the storyline at times, but not consistently throughout the performance.

When the video worked

“The Word of Your Body”

The most artistically successful use of the video occurred during the song “The Word of Your Body,” where the two teenage characters Wendla Bergmann and Melchior Gabor reunite under a tree after not seeing each other in some time. The lyrics talk of innocent interest in the opposite sex, and how each is slightly scared of potentially hurting the other during their path of sexual awareness. During the song, the video showed what seemed to be the two characters lovingly engaging in some rudimentary sexual activity (rolling on the floor, shifting positions); though with closer attention, the footage actually served as a forecast to an upcoming scene where Melchior is beating Wendla. The footage of the fight was slowed down to look like lovemaking, but the choreography was verbatim to the fight scene two songs later. This play on images served the story well, providing added visual information to the song that deepened the relationship between the characters.

“And Then There Were None”

The use of the monitors in “And Then There Were None,” a song that verbalizes a letter from Melchior’s Mother to her son’s friend Mortiz Steifel, highlight the theme of current trends versus older traditions. As the woman sings the lines of her letter, understood to have been handwritten in the original script, the monitors showed the exact letter being typed out in a Facebook message. A clear critique on communication modes of today, the imagery enhanced the gap between the generations, trivializing the content of her letter even more than the words already do.

When the video detracted

“All That’s Known”

The third song of the show, “All That’s Known” housed the only time a live-feedback loop was used during the show, and for good reason. The delay between the live and the looped was too large, and as a result, looked like a failed attempt at accomplishing new technology. Since this song is at the very beginning of the show, it set an amateurish tone basically from the get-go.

“Don’t Do Sadness”

The visuals during “Don’t Do Sadness” were a stark contrast to the success of “The Word of Your Body.” Moritz, in his depression, wishes to liken himself to the carefree life of a butterfly. It is clear that he is singing from a very dark place, yet the imagery on the monitors shows an animated literal interpretation of the metaphor. A brightly colored butterfly bouncing from flower to flower does not provide a play-on-words here, but rather trivializes the entire scene.

Together, the costuming and multimedia aspects, despite the times it destracted, of the NYU production gave it an individuality in comparison to the original musical, and the juxtaposition of the modern day paradigms over the traditional aesthetics elevated the meaning behind the storyline itself.