Teenage sexuality, self-expression, heartbreaking laments, teen angst and illicit, erotic charge is the centerpiece of Duncan Sheik's enveloping musical drama "Spring Awakening" which, with its cast of 13 plus a seven-member band, is given an emotional, bruising, effective Bohemian-like treatment by Connecticut Theatre Company. It's a creative concept that elevates this passionate revival of the 2009 Broadway smash to an astonishing level of pure poetry and euphoria, bathed in immersive swatches of color, beauty, longing, abandonment and sonorous commitment.
On paper, it's a musical about schoolchildren - dark, intense, constant, explosive, deadening - but, in actuality, "Spring Awakening" plays more like an edgy, sophisticated and moody teen composition designed primarily for adults looking for something raw, dangerous and imaginative.
On that level, it succeeds.
It is gusty, surreal and mind-blowing.
It rings an alarm that fascinates, stirs and beguiles.
It grapples with the mind with anxious structure and psychological intricacy.
It is sharp, jagged and persuasive.
It is raw and dangerous.
It is startling and cynical.
It is anachronistic in expression.
It is urgent and vital.
It floors you with its honesty.
It leaves you breathless.
Exploring issues, themes and subject matter that are both timely and universal, the Connecticut Theatre Company interpretation of Spring Awakening" is addressed with purpose, challenge, stylization, exploration and engrossing lyricism.
This is theatre - captivating musical theatre that jumps, rocks, tilts, bends, segues, spins, haunts and entices. Everyone involved - onstage and behind-the-scenes' - is not only on the same page, but infuse the production with an honesty and thrill reflective of the musical's original conceit and direction.
Written for the stage by Steven Sater, "Spring Awakening" takes its inspiration from Frank Wedekind's intimate, explicit, controversial 1891 German play of the same name that was subsequently banned in Germany for its blatant, descriptive portrayal of sexual copulation, masturbation, rape, abortion, father-daughter incest, suicide, rape, teen pregnancy, homosexuality, fantasy, communal ejaculation, self-flagellation and blatant acts of self-inflicted masochism amongst 19th century teenagers discovering the intimacies of their inner and outer sexuality amidst a backdrop of strict bourgeois practice and morality.
As playwright, Sater (he also wrote the lyrics) digs deep with words, conversations, story arcs and characters that intuitively respect the original source material, its intentions, its details, its intensity and its dramatic seriousness.
Offset by a carefully modulated blend of lyrics, paired carefully and creatively with Duncan Sheik's potent, driven orchestrations, the duo's blend of catchy pseudo-pop, folk-infusion and alternative rock music transform this tale of sexual awakening into a hypnotic, voltage-charged piece of American musical theatre. It's all dotted and inked with affecting interrogation, scope, identity and voyeuristic probing, thrust and explosion.
In the directorial chair at Connecticut Theatre Company, co-directors Erin Campbell and Becky McLean come to "Spring Awakening" with a fresh, invigorating mindset and keen, observant directorial style that lets the musical and its rock-based score fuse together with detail, conviction, strength and illumination. Given the seriousness of the subject matter, its tragedies and hardships, the duo accept the challenge of the musical's many story-driven elements and justify every moment, expression and movement with a freshness and vulnerability that allows the production to fly, click, breathe and resonate without missing a single beat, tick or nuance.
As "Spring Awakening" evolves, they unite creatively and deftly mirror the gutsy, intense emotions, conversations and exchanges that define the original 19th century story and its reworked telling by Sater. As storytellers, they take chances. They experiment. They try things differently. They move to their own decided beat. They also push and pull with moody elan and control, thus, creating an impassioned, disturbing and raw portrait of teen angst and sexual awakening that gets you thinking, numbs the senses and sparks moments of rattle and roar which they use most advantageously throughout the production.
It's all here: flat-out truths, bared souls, consensual sex, back-street abortions, masturbatory fantasy, Lutheranism, homosexual couplings, scholastic challenges, depression, experimentation, pain and confusion.
No tricks. No games. No gimmicks. No pandering.
Just real, justified, revolutionary storytelling that under the directorial tutelage of Campbell and McLean is bold, brazen, passionate, grief-laden and bleeding.
Scene after scene, song after song, line after line, there's a marvelous sense of dedication and craftsmanship here feted with quaking honesty, gutting entanglement and cohesive expression and rhythmic, propulsive spontaneity. The lighting palate they create furthers that notion with moody, atmospheric, surreal nuance, shading and character.
Musically, "Spring Awakening" is richly partnered in a solid tableau of creativity that serves the score admirably and collectively with obvious commodity, matter, sweep and knowingness. It unfolds naturally and intuitively with an expressed mix of humor, lightness, seriousness, spirit and drama concurrent with the musical's coming-of-age storyline, the rise and fall of its central characters, its grounding experiences, its values, its traditions, its tragedies and its weighty repercussions.
The songs, by Sater and Sheik, are well-placed and positioned throughout the musical story. They are: "Mama Who Bore Me," "Mama Who Bore Me (reprise)," "All That's Known," "The Bitch of Living," "My Junk," "Touch Me," "The Word of Your Body," "The Dark I Know So Well," "And Then There Were None," "The Mirror-Blue Night," "I Believe," "The Guilty Ones," "Don't Do Sadness/ Blue Wind," "Left Behind," "Totally Fucked," "The World of Your Body (reprise)," "Whispering," "Those You've Known" and "The Song of Purple Summer."
For this incarnation of the Broadway musical, Connecticut Theatre Company is represented by a driven, inspirational and talented team of musicians led by music director Nick Stanford (also at the piano), featuring the orchestral teamwork of Nicholas Zavaglia (guitar), Phoebe Suzuki (violin), Tyler Gauruder (viola), Sarah Barrett (cello), Matt McCauley (bass), and Bob Kogut/Nate Dobas (drums). In sync with Sater and Sheik's involved, emotional vision for "Spring Awakening," Stanford and his orchestral company address the duo's frenzied musical landscape with purpose, intensity and precision, reveling in the musicality of the score's arousing, adrenalized beats, its fiery, animated rhythms, its contoured, floating poetry, its shimmers of bittersweet humanity and its theatrical pitch and balance.
As the musical evolves, there's real dedication here - straightforward, vivid, mobile, tender, mood shifting. The orchestral sound is both passionate and intense. There's a richness and edge that is wildly consistent. Control and climax are powerfully executed. The combination of instruments is fulsome. Every musical number is played with great sensitivity and showmanship.
This fission of musicality is also prevalent in the vocals of the principals, the supporting cast and the ensemble all of whom connect with the uplifting, affecting music they are asked to bring to life with confession-like voice and discovery and its varying, rooted blends of melancholy, lust, sensibility, protest, anger, apathy, passion, desire and hope.
Another plus of this "Spring Awakening" mounting is the insightful, athletic, raw and free-flowing choreography by Kim Saltzman who comes to the project with a vision and artistic elan that is addressed and realized with interpretative engineering and engagement that gives the two-act musical its mind-bending, dreamlike, transporting, surrealistic allure and liberating abandonment.
It's confident. It's energetic. It's voyeuristic. It's abstract. It's hyper-specific.
It's conveyed by Saltzman with touchstone celebration, continuity and artistic balance, reinforced by the story's themes, ideas, conflicts, revelations and hard facts. It is also very different in style and tone from both the Broadway and West End staging, a concept that gives it a fresh, exuberant life of its own mixed with emotive expressionism, organic thrust, lustful interplay and full fraught waves of intoxication and coordinated invention.
Casting is key to the success of any "Spring Awakening" production and Campbell and McLean have assembled a talented group of performers - young and old - to address the plot, themes, tragedy and repercussions of German playwright Frank Wedekind's original story through staging, songs, dialogue and dance that bruises the heart, floors you with its beauty and pulsates with both potential and raw, natural honesty.
Galen Donovan, as the troubled, inquisitive, impulsive Melchior, naturally projects the image of a sexually awakened teenager whose ideals, beliefs and values often challenge those around him. It's an emotionally charged, sensitive performance that channels and portrays the emotions and curiosity of a 19th century student and dreamer, matched by pitch-perfect vocals - "All That's Known," "The Word of Your Body," "Left Behind," "Totally Fucked" - that heighten the musical's dramatic evolution, its shifts in time and place and its romantic, often dangerous allure.
In the role of the troubled, suicidal Moritz Stiefel, a young man tortured by anxiety and the day-to-day fears of failing his classes and disappointing his father and fellow classmates, Javen Levesque crafts a haunting, angst-ridden performance that he owns and inhabits with sheer magnetism, force, charisma and vocal chops that heighten and cement his important musical numbers - "The Bitch of Living," "And Then There Were None" and "Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind."
As Wendla, the sensitive, innocent young girl who captures and wins Melchior's heart, Montana Telman imbues her sweet-natured characterization with an instinctive confidence, curiosity and incentive that easily reflects both Sater and Wedekind's depiction of the character, her role in the drama, the tragedy of her innocent mistakes and her innermost thoughts about love, intimacy and belonging.
Vocally, she brings real drama, sweetness and pulse to her character's vocals, which include "Mama Who Bore Me," "Whispering," "The Word of Your Body" and "The Guilty Ones." She also shares a believable, tender-hearted and spirited connection with Donovan which makes their many scenes together bristle with excitement, sexual energy and sparked compassion and desire.
The always watchable Kerrie Maguire freely and intuitively immerses herself in the role of the bohemian Ilse, a troubled teenager who escapes an abusive home to live freely in the environs of an artist's colony where pretty much can happen and does with willing, consensual partnership. It's a deeply moving, in-the-moment performance that benefits greatly from Maguire's deep, visceral connection, her invention and inspiration and her quick, intuitive grasp of the "Spring Awakening" material.
Musically, her dramatic take on "The Dark I Know Well," a pivotal, disturbing musical number which she shares with Martha, played in this production by the personable and engaging Krystina Diaz, is performed with stark, slick, jagged abandon that eerily portrays the evil in humanity that comes from a father's recurring sexual abuse of his daughters.
Much later, Maguire takes center stage to sing the lilting, heartfelt "The Song of Purple Summer" (the entire cast eventually joins in), a revelatory musical anthem about the emotional growth and birth of a new generation, who eagerly await a very liberated future. Her rendition of this Act II showstopper reveals a fiery, rock-solid intensity, matched by exceptional phrasing, technique and interpretation. Well aware of her vocal talents, Campbell, McLean and Stanford have expanded the role of Ilsa in "Spring Awakening" so that Maguire could be featured in other important musical numbers that originally didn't feature her character.
Cindy Maher and Stephen Maher fill the shoes of the various adult characters they are asked to play - mother, father, teacher, doctor, abortionist, priest, piano coach, etc. - with strict, rigid, conversative registry, manner, impulse and societal representation. Given the musical's 1891 setting, they effectively humanize their many characterizations with style, purpose, attitude and moral take-charge concurrent with the society of their times, their provincial, judgmental backgrounds and the hypocrisy associated with their strong religious Lutheran upbringing.
The supporting cast - Sarah Ford, Kevin Kiley, Faith Fernandes, Greg Mahoney, Tiernan Shea, Maxwell Dittmar, Krystina Diaz - offer real, honest, dangerous, driven performances that transform their individual classmate characters into seismic interpreters of the times, the story and the poetry that is "Spring Awakening."
As actors, they go the extra mile. They offer up useful, important information about their role in the ongoing story. They click. They interact. They game change. They achieve. They are also a true ensemble of players, bound together by song, dialogue, dance and movement which they toss off with considerable ease, determination, humor, chat and remarkable musicality.
And that, in a nutshell, is a staggering achievement in itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment