Spring Awakening (musical): Difference between revisions
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Wendla Bergmann, an [[adolescence|adolescent]] girl in late-19th century [[Germany]], laments that her mother gave her "no way to handle things" and has not taught her the lessons she needs to learn ("Mama Who Bore Me"). She tells her mother that it is time she know where [[infant|babies]] come from, considering that she is about to be an aunt for the second time, but her mother cannot bring herself to explain the facts about conception clearly to Wendla. Instead, she simply tells Wendla that to conceive a child a woman must love her husband with all her heart. The other young girls in town appear to be similarly innocent and are upset about the lack of knowledge presented to them ("Mama Who Bore Me" (reprise)). |
Wendla Bergmann, an [[adolescence|adolescent]] girl in late-19th century [[Germany]], laments that her mother gave her "no way to handle things" and has not taught her the lessons she needs to learn ("Mama Who Bore Me"). She tells her mother that it is time she know where [[infant|babies]] come from, considering that she is about to be an aunt for the second time, but her mother cannot bring herself to explain the facts about conception clearly to Wendla. Instead, she simply tells Wendla that to conceive a child a woman must love her husband with all her heart. The other young girls in town appear to be similarly innocent and are upset about the lack of knowledge presented to them ("Mama Who Bore Me" (reprise)). |
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At school, some teenage boys are studying [[Virgil]] in [[Latin]] class. When Moritz Stiefel, a very nervous and intense young man, sleepily misquotes a line, the teacher chastises him harshly. Moritz's classmate, the rebellious and intelligent Melchior Gabor, tries to defend him, but the teacher will have none of it, and hits Melchior with a stick. Melchior reflects on the shallow narrow-mindedness of school and society and expresses his intent to change things ("All That's Known"). Moritz describes a dream that has been keeping him up at night, and Melchior realizes that Moritz has been having dreams of an erotic nature. To comfort the panicked Moritz, Melchior, who has learned sexual information from books, tells Moritz that all the boys their age get the dreams. All the boys tell about their own frustrating thoughts and desires ("The Bitch Of Living"). Moritz, who is not comfortable talking about the subject with Melchior, insists that he give him the information in the form of an [[essay]], complete with illustrations. |
At school, some teenage boys are studying [[Virgil]] in [[Latin]] class. When Moritz Stiefel, a very nervous and intense young man, sleepily misquotes a line, the teacher chastises him harshly. Moritz's classmate, the rebellious and intelligent Melchior Gabor, tries to defend him, but the teacher will have none of it, and hits Melchior with a stick. Melchior reflects on the shallow narrow-mindedness of school and society and expresses his intent to change things ("All That's Known"). |
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Moritz describes a dream that has been keeping him up at night, and Melchior realizes that Moritz has been having dreams of an erotic nature. To comfort the panicked Moritz, Melchior, who has learned sexual information from books, tells Moritz that all the boys their age get the dreams. All the boys tell about their own frustrating thoughts and desires ("The Bitch Of Living"). Moritz, who is not comfortable talking about the subject with Melchior, insists that he give him the information in the form of an [[essay]], complete with illustrations. |
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Some girls are gathered together after school and tease each other as they fantasize about marrying the boys in the town. At the top of the list is the radical, intelligent, and good-looking Melchior. Meanwhile, Hanschen [[masturbation|masturbates]] as he looks at an erotic [[postcard]], and the [[piano]] student Georg indulges in some lively fantasies about his well-endowed female piano teacher ("My Junk"). Moritz has eagerly digested the essay that Melchior prepared for him, but complains that his new knowledge has only made his dreams even more vivid and torturous. Melchior tries to calm and comfort his friend, but Moritz runs off in frustration. All of the boys and girls express their desire for physical [[intimacy]] ("Touch Me"). |
Some girls are gathered together after school and tease each other as they fantasize about marrying the boys in the town. At the top of the list is the radical, intelligent, and good-looking Melchior. Meanwhile, Hanschen [[masturbation|masturbates]] as he looks at an erotic [[postcard]], and the [[piano]] student Georg indulges in some lively fantasies about his well-endowed female piano teacher ("My Junk"). Moritz has eagerly digested the essay that Melchior prepared for him, but complains that his new knowledge has only made his dreams even more vivid and torturous. Melchior tries to calm and comfort his friend, but Moritz runs off in frustration. All of the boys and girls express their desire for physical [[intimacy]] ("Touch Me"). |
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Revision as of 00:45, 21 May 2008
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2008) |
| Spring Awakening | |
|---|---|
 Original Broadway Recording | |
| Music | Duncan Sheik |
| Lyrics | Steven Sater |
| Book | Steven Sater |
| Basis | Frank Wedekind's play Spring Awakening |
| Productions | 2006 Off-Broadway 2006 Broadway 2008 North American Tour Major international productions |
| Awards | Tony Award for Best Musical Tony Award for Best Book Tony Award for Best Score Drama Desk Outstanding Musical Drama Desk Outstanding Music Drama Desk Outstanding Lyrics Outer Critics Outstanding Musical Outer Critics Outstanding Score Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album |
Spring Awakening is a Tony Award-winning rock musical with music by Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Sater. The musical is based on the controversial 1891 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. The original play was banned in Germany due to its extremely controversial content, which included masturbation, abortion, rape and suicide. During the musical, characters sometimes break the fourth wall to express their frustrations, motivations, and desires directly to the audience.
After a number of workshops, concerts and rewrites over a seven-year period, Spring Awakening premiered Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company on May 19 2006 and closed August 17 2006.
The show opened on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on December 10 2006 and received favorable reviews.[1] Spring Awakening received eleven 2007 Tony Award nominations, winning eight, including Tonys for best musical, direction, book, score and featured actor. The show also won four Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical. The production is directed by Michael Mayer and choreographed by Bill T. Jones.
Decca Broadway released the original cast recording on December 12 2006, with the recording later winning the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album on February 10, 2008.[2] The guitar Sheik used to compose songs for Spring Awakening is on display at the New York Library For The Performing Arts. [3]
Synopsis
- Act I
Wendla Bergmann, an adolescent girl in late-19th century Germany, laments that her mother gave her "no way to handle things" and has not taught her the lessons she needs to learn ("Mama Who Bore Me"). She tells her mother that it is time she know where babies come from, considering that she is about to be an aunt for the second time, but her mother cannot bring herself to explain the facts about conception clearly to Wendla. Instead, she simply tells Wendla that to conceive a child a woman must love her husband with all her heart. The other young girls in town appear to be similarly innocent and are upset about the lack of knowledge presented to them ("Mama Who Bore Me" (reprise)).
At school, some teenage boys are studying Virgil in Latin class. When Moritz Stiefel, a very nervous and intense young man, sleepily misquotes a line, the teacher chastises him harshly. Moritz's classmate, the rebellious and intelligent Melchior Gabor, tries to defend him, but the teacher will have none of it, and hits Melchior with a stick. Melchior reflects on the shallow narrow-mindedness of school and society and expresses his intent to change things ("All That's Known").
Moritz describes a dream that has been keeping him up at night, and Melchior realizes that Moritz has been having dreams of an erotic nature. To comfort the panicked Moritz, Melchior, who has learned sexual information from books, tells Moritz that all the boys their age get the dreams. All the boys tell about their own frustrating thoughts and desires ("The Bitch Of Living"). Moritz, who is not comfortable talking about the subject with Melchior, insists that he give him the information in the form of an essay, complete with illustrations.
Some girls are gathered together after school and tease each other as they fantasize about marrying the boys in the town. At the top of the list is the radical, intelligent, and good-looking Melchior. Meanwhile, Hanschen masturbates as he looks at an erotic postcard, and the piano student Georg indulges in some lively fantasies about his well-endowed female piano teacher ("My Junk"). Moritz has eagerly digested the essay that Melchior prepared for him, but complains that his new knowledge has only made his dreams even more vivid and torturous. Melchior tries to calm and comfort his friend, but Moritz runs off in frustration. All of the boys and girls express their desire for physical intimacy ("Touch Me").
Wendla stumbles upon Melchior while walking through the woods. The two share a moment while sitting together in front of a tree. Each of them considers what it would be like to give in to their physical desires, but they do not do so ("The Word Of Your Body"). Meanwhile, at school, Moritz is thrilled to learn that he has passed his midterm examinations, but the teacher and schoolmaster can't pass everyone, so they decide to fail Moritz no matter what.
Martha, one of the teenage girls, accidentally admits to her friends that her father abuses her physically (including sexual abuse) and that her mother is either oblivious or uncaring. The other girls are horrified to hear this, but Martha makes them promise not to tell anyone, lest she end up like Ilse, a friend from childhood who is now homeless because her parents kicked her out of their house ("The Dark I Know Well"). Later, Wendla finds Melchior again at his spot in the woods and tells him that one of her friends regularly gets abused by her father. Melchior is appalled to hear this, but Wendla convinces him to hit her with a switch, so that she can understand her friend's pain. Melchior reluctantly complies but gets carried away and throws her to the ground. He then runs off, disgusted with himself. Alone, Wendla finds that Melchior has left his journal on the ground. She picks it up and takes it with her.
Moritz has failed his final examination, and his father reacts with disdain and contempt when Moritz tells him that he will not progress in school. Moritz writes to Melchior's mother, his only adult friend, for money to flee to America; she tenderly but firmly denies his request but promises to write his parents to discourage them from being too hard on him ("And Then There Were None").
In a stuffy hayloft during a storm, Melchior considers his own frustration at being caught between childhood and adulthood ("The Mirror-Blue Night"). Wendla finds him once again, telling him she wants to return his journal, and each awkwardly apologizes for what happened the last time they met. Before long, they begin to kiss; Wendla resists his advances at first. Though she seems uncertain about how far she wants to take their physical relationship, they begin to have sex ("I Believe").
- Act II
Wendla and Melchior are finishing their moment of intimacy in the hayloft; they reflect on and discuss what has just happened ("The Guilty Ones"). Meanwhile, Moritz, having been thrown out of his home, wanders the town at dusk, carrying a pistol ("Don't Do Sadness"). He happens upon free-spirited Ilse, also homeless, who invites him to join her in sharing some old childhood memories, and perhaps something more, but Moritz refuses ("Blue Wind"). After she has left, he calls after her, but it is too late; she is gone. Believing that he has nowhere to turn, Moritz shoots and kills himself.
At Moritz's funeral, each of his friends drops a flower into his grave, and Melchior chastises Moritz's father for being so cruel to his friend, as the other students look at Moritz's father with disgust for pushing Moritz too hard when he was alive ("Left Behind"). Back at school, the schoolmaster and teacher inform Melchior that Moritz's parents found the sex essay he had written for him. They lay the blame on Melchior for his friend's suicide, and although Melchior knows that he is not to blame, he knows there is nothing he can do to fight them, and he is expelled ("Totally Fucked"). Elsewhere that night, Hanschen meets up with his shy and delicate classmate Ernst. In a comedy-relief scene, Hanschen shares his pragmatic outlook on life with his classmate before seducing him. It is Ernst's first sexual experience, and he tells Hanschen that he loves him as the two share a passionate kiss ("The Word Of Your Body" (reprise)).
Wendla has become ill, and her mother takes her to visit a doctor. He gives her some medication and assures them both that Wendla is suffering from anemia and will be fine, but he takes Wendla's mother aside and tells her that Wendla is pregnant. When her mother confronts her with this information, Wendla is completely shocked, not understanding how this could have happened. She realizes that her mother lied to her about how babies are made. Though she berates her mother for leaving her ignorant, her mother rejects the guilt and insists Wendla tell her who the father is. Wendla reluctantly surrenders a passionate note Melchior sent her after they consummated their relationship. Wendla reflects somberly on her current condition and the circumstances that led her to this difficult position but ends with optimism about her future child ("Whispering"). Meanwhile, Melchior's parents argue about their son's fate; his mother does not believe that the essay he wrote for Moritz is sufficient reason to send him away to reform school. When Melchior's father tells his wife about Wendla's pregnancy, however, she agrees that they must send Melchior away, which they do without telling him that Wendla is pregnant.
At the reform school, Melchior gets into a fight with some boys who grab a letter he has just received from Wendla and use it in a masturbation game. As one of the boys reads from the letter, Melchior finally learns about Wendla and their child, and he escapes from the institution to find her. He does not know that Wendla's mother has already taken her to an underground practitioner to have an abortion. When Melchior reaches town, he sends a message to Wendla's friends to have her meet him at the cemetery at midnight. There, he stumbles across Moritz's grave, and swears to himself that he and Wendla will raise their child in a compassionate and open environment. Spotting a freshly dug grave, Melchior discovers that Wendla has died from 'anemia.' Overcome with grief, he takes out a razor with the intention of killing himself. Moritz's and Wendla's spirits rise from their graves to offer him their strength. They persuade him to journey on, and he resolves to live and to carry their memories with him forever ("Those You've Known").
Led by Ilse, everyone assembles onstage to sing "The Song of Purple Summer" about life and hope.
Musical numbers
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++Note: "The Guilty Ones" replaced off-Broadway version's Act II opening, "There Once Was A Pirate"; the latter is available as a bonus track sung by composer Duncan Sheik on the original cast recording.
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Roles and cast information
- Original Broadway cast
- Melchior – Jonathan Groff
- Wendla – Lea Michele
- Moritz – John Gallagher Jr.
- Adult Men – Stephen Spinella
- Adult Women – Christine Estabrook
- Ilse – Lauren Pritchard
- Georg/Dieter – Skylar Astin
- Martha – Lilli Cooper
- Ernst/Reinhold – Gideon Glick
- Otto/Ulbrecht – Brian Charles Johnson
- Anna – Phoebe Strole
- Hanschen/Rupert – Jonathan B. Wright
- Thea – Remy Zaken
- Notable replacements
- Moritz - Blake Bashoff
- Melchior - Kyle Riabko
- Hanschen - Matt Doyle
- Wendla - Alexandra Socha
Differences between the play and the musical
In addition to being shorter, having scenes in a different order, and being phrased differently, the book of the musical has some characterization and plot differences from the Wedekind play.
In the play, there is another young male character, Robert, and the character Anna does not exist.
In the play, most of the children dislike Moritz. Except for Melchior and Hanschen, the boys hope that Moritz will get in trouble for breaking into the school records. Thea says that Moritz is always doing something weird. The other boys also insensitively gossip about the method Moritz used to kill himself. In the musical, all the children like Moritz; the other boys are happy for him when he passes his midterms, and all the children look sad at his funeral. Also, in the play Moritz's father doesn't cry at his funeral, but in the musical he breaks down sobbing.
In the play, Hanschen is portrayed as nicer than most of the boys, and his scene with Ernst is loving. In the musical, there are several references to his peers finding him creepy and his scene with Ernst is manipulative.
In the play, when Hanschen is talking to his postcard, he tells it that he's going to flush it down the toilet so he can have control over his masturbation. In the musical, he is masturbating as he imagines killing the girl in the postcard.
In the play, Martha is physically abused by her father. In the musical, Martha and Ilse are physically and sexually abused by their fathers.
In the play, Melchior rapes Wendla. In the musical, she says no but then puts his hand on her breast, indicating consent, and then seems to enjoy having sex. While this can still be considered rape because Wendla isn't educated about sex, it is more ambiguous than in the play.
In the play, Moritz slightly regrets not going with Ilse because she is promiscuous and he wanted to have sex before he committed suicide. In the musical, it's implied that he greatly wants to go with her but is unable to agree for some reason. After she leaves, he expresses his regret by saying "For the love of God, all I had to do was say yes! Ilse! ILSE!...I'll tell them all, the angels...[that] I sang and played pirates."
In the play, the ghost of Moritz tries to convince Melchior to kill himself, but is stopped by the Masked Man. In the musical, Melchior decides to kill himself when he sees the newly-erected grave of Wendla, but then the ghosts of Moritz and Wendla convince him not to.
Other productions
A U.S. national tour (with one stop in Toronto, Canada) is scheduled to open in August 2008. Tour dates have been announced through August 2009 beginning on the West Coast and moving to the East Coast by June 2009.
A London production has been announced to begin in January 2009, with an official opening on February 3, 2009 at the Lyric Hammersmith.[4] A South Korean production is slated to begin in summer 2009, to be produced by Musical Heaven.[citation needed]
Other Productions have been announced for 2009 openings in Canada, Israel (in Hebrew), Germany and Austria (in German), Spain (in Spanish), Japan (in Japanese), France (in French), The Netherlands (in Dutch), Denmark (in Danish), Finland (in Finnish), Iceland (in Icelandic), Norway (in Norwegian), and Sweden (in Swedish).[5]
Awards and nominations
New York Drama Critics Circle Award
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References
- ^ "Spring Awakening Review Roundup" (BroadwayWorld.com)
- ^ Information about 2008 Grammy Awards
- ^ www.broadway.tv "Broadway’s Hidden Treasures Revealed"
- ^ Shenton, Mark. "Spring Awakening Will Make U.K. Premiere in 2009 at Lyric Hammersmith" Playbill.com, May 19, 2008
- ^ Spring Awakening Swedish website
External links
- Official Site of the Broadway production.
- Playbill article about the show moving to Broadway.
- Atlantic Theater Company website with information about the off-Broadway production.
- Playbill article about the show moving to Broadway.
- Opening Night: Spring Awakening at Broadway.com
- On the Scene: Behind the Scenes: Backstage at Spring Awakening with Jonathan Groff at Broadway.com
- Spring Awakening announces National tour and international productions