Musical theatre is one of those things that people either hate or love. Ain’t no in-betweeners when it comes to Sondheim, Fosse, or that mid-90s phenomenon known as Rent. Even rabid fans of the genre would never claim the form to be high-brow. For me, it’s one of those things I love in spite of myself, something I claim I only listen to on occasion, when in fact the most-played item on my iTunes is “My Junk”—the vaguely nonsensical ode to teenaged infatuation from Spring Awakening—which just happens to have landed at the Canon Theatre this past week.
This isn’t the first time Spring Awakening’s popped up in Toronto. Back in the halcyon days of 1986, the late Bill Glassco produced a version of Frank Wedekind’s (non-musical) Spring Awakening that did the unthinkable: casting real teenagers. Maybe that doesn’t seem so wild now, but the show was shut down pretty quickly. Glassco and director Derek Goldby were slapped with an obscenity charge, and Spring Awakening went back underground.
Written in 1891 by renegade German poet and playwright Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening was a straight-up piece of expressionist theatre; a layered series of narratives focused on growing up in a repressive environment—sexually and emotionally—portending much of the political unrest that would come to define Germany in the 20th century. Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s musical version of Spring Awakening diverges from the racy material that got everybody in such a snit back in the 19th and 20th centuries, but doesn’t entirely do away with the all the discord—it just makes it a little more hummable. And a little more razzle-dazzle.
In both Wedekind and Sater’s versions, Spring Awakening spotlights a small group of teenagers, specifically the radical free-thinker Melchior Gabor (Matt Doyle), and Wendla (Christy Altomare). There’s also the tortured Moritz, a young man whose troublesome lust gets in the way of his Latin conjugations. Through a fusion of bouncy ensemble numbers (reprise of “Mama Who Bore Me”) and pensive duets (“The Word of Your Body”), Spring Awakening tempers the darkness of the original play while creating something entirely distinctive.
Although much of the darker element has been stripped from the musical (Wendla and Melchior’s sex scene wasn’t consensual in the original), Spring Awakening never claims to be Wedekind’s direct progeny. Instead, it aims to take a hundred-year-old relic, radical as it was, and make it accessible to a new audience. That includes casting teenagers and early twenty-somethings, an age bracket rarely given an entire show. Here, it’s the two adult characters who are relegated to the thankless Mom-and-Dad roles usually consigned to Angsty Daughter #2. It’s refreshing because it demonstrates that the new guard of mainstream theatre is loosening up with regard to edgier content such as masturbation, isolation, and curiosity about anatomy and pleasure. It honestly illustrates the physical and emotional awakening that these characters are experiencing.
One of the most fascinating conceits of the musical is the formal conventions that Sater and composer Duncan Sheik have done away with. Spring Awakening knows that it takes place somewhere in turn-of-the-century Germany, and the dialogue reflects that. But when the singing starts, what the audience sees is a group of real kids performing as themselves, bringing their secret inner rock star onstage for all to see. In one scene, the boys sit rigidly in class before shifting seamlessly into the frenetic “Bitch of Living,” pulling out their mikes and leaping off the hard-backed chairs. It successfully blurs the line between performance and reality, emphasized by the audience members who sit onstage with the cast, their emotional responses integrated into the action. The performers make no qualms about responding directly to them with a smile or nod. It’s the subtlety that makes it effective, especially since musical theatre is not known for that specific quality. This synthesis underscores the contradictions that make being a teen so beautifully complicated.
Further narrowing the division between the people onstage and off is cast member Andy Mientus (who plays the predatory Hanschen, seducer of would-be pastor Ernst). He began his involvement in Spring Awakening by way of Facebook. “I originally saw the show when it was off-Broadway, and my friends and I were all really into it. I made the group for us to post information on and all these other people started to join.” Producers of Spring Awakening eventually asked him to maintain the page, and it’s now the official Facebook group with more than 20,000 members. Even after being cast in the touring production, Andy still moderates the official blog (totallytrucked.blogspot.com), making backstage videos and interacting with Spring Awakening devotees. Within all this, Andy has managed to keep loving the show and everything it meant to him at the outset.
“Because of the way I was cast, and my history of loving the show without a dream of being in it, it would be very difficult for me to fall out of love. Of course, there’s that honeymoon period at first, but now I feel like I’ve got a good handle on the show—it doesn’t feel like work anymore. It’s a great place the show is in right now—we’re all still excited by it, but more solid about what we’re doing. I really know what I want to do with this character now. There was a lot of play and exploration at the beginning. Now that allows me to just enjoy the show.”
Across the board, everyone has enjoyed Spring Awakening, reaping it with critical praise, major awards, and a cult following. Still, the show has its detractors. Jonathan Franzen, best-known for that lengthy novel of family dysfunction The Corrections, famously slagged off the musical in the forward to his translation of the Wedekind original, calling it “insipid” and “overpraised.” Harsh, but spot-on in pointing out the unapologetic way in which the adult creators of Spring Awakening have capitalized on the thrill of watching sexy teenagers “discover” each other for the audience’s benefit. I don’t see why that’s a problem for a show that admits to being about the mysteries (and sometimes absurdity) of sex. It certainly won’t stop me from playing “My Junk” twelve times in a row while my roommate shoots me dirty looks. Not those kinds of dirty looks.
Spring Awakening runs until April 19 at the Canon Theatre (244 Victoria Street). Tickets are $25-$99 and are available at www.mirvish.com. Onstage student rush tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the box office day-of two hours before performance time, one ticket per person, with valid student ID.
