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Spring Awakening review | Courtyard Theatre | Frank Wedekind's 1906 play
SPRING AWAKENING
Courtyard Theatre
ABORTION, rape, suicide, masturbation, homosexuality, domestic violence, death and the after-life, sex and sexuality – no wonder Spring Awakening was such a scandal when it was first performed in 1906.
More than a century later, the parallels with modern life are striking. A group of 14-year-olds discover the desires and drawbacks of their soaring sexuality, and battle with the oppressive mis-education of bourgeois morality.
A couple of the characters are unfortunately nipped in the bud. Wendla Bergmann, after being told by her mother that the prerequisites for having a baby are love and marriage, then falls pregnant and declares it cannot be possible because she is not even married and never loved anyone except her mother. After a botched abortion, Wendla dies.
The bright, charming and misunderstood Melchior Gabor, the boy who hastily has sex with Wendla, is more clued up about anatomy and sex than the other characters but still has a lot to learn about his own sexuality. The pregnancy, along with a document he writes about “copulation”, is too much for his teachers and parents and he is sent to a reformatory.
His close friend, Moritz Stiefel, tries his hardest at school but does not excel like Melchior. Lonely and alienated, he eventually commits suicide. Later he comes back as a ghost when Melchior is contemplating death after escaping from the reformatory.
But a mysterious masked man takes Melchior away before Moritz can persuade Melchior to join him. It is unclear whether the masked man represents the real or the imaginary, life or death, safety or danger. It is clear we are not meant to trust the masked man but I am left with the hope that Melchior, and many a youth like him, might find their way out.
Although the themes are dark and demanding, Frank Wedekind’s humour is maintained throughout.
Until May 18
0870 163 0717 |
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