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It will take a good deal of time to see if this new musical is an important,
trend setting work, or simply a superbly satisfying one-shot deal. Clearly,
it is the most successful rock musical since Rent. However, its
success is so singular that it isn't at all clear whether anyone else could
apply the concepts that work so well here to another Broadway project. The
team of Steven Sater (book and lyrics) and Duncan Sheik (music) found a way
to make a musical out of a nineteenth century play that dealt with topics
with a strong connection to today's youth. The play was considered
pornographic in its day and is still on the cutting edge of the treatment of
sexual topics, which is precisely what makes contemporary rock music
the right choice. Sater and Sheik's solution to the challenge is perhaps
unique in the annals of the Broadway stage. When these teenagers in
lederhosen sing, they pull microphones from their costumes and sing
rock-infused songs that tell the audience what is going on in their minds.
Every one of the songs is what drama teachers call an "internal monologue."
The character is telling the audience what he or she is thinking or feeling.
The Broadway stage is no stranger to internal monologues (think back to
Billy Bigelow's "Soliloquy" in Carousel - internal monologue). But this
reviewer can't recall a single Broadway score in history that was, like this
one, exclusively internal. |
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Storyline: The teenagers of a small German town in 1891 experience the same
turmoil that modern youth have when sexuality awakens. This tale of two
couples and their successes and failures in the transition from childhood to
adulthood is based on a play banned in its day and still considered
scandalous in many circles for its frank representation of masturbation,
extra-marital teen pregnancy, abortion, homosexuality and suicide.
When Spring Awakening
opened off Broadway, a knowledgeable and perceptive observer of musical
theater commented that this might be the score that Jonathan Larson
would have written had he survived the rupture of his aorta the day that
Rent opened. That comment is correct as far as it goes, but it short
changes the credit that should go to Sheik and Sater. The score certainly
has a good deal that sounds rather like Larson's Rent. The
rhythmically shouted "What Went Wrong" in the first really rock number of
the score, "The Bitch of Living," seems calculated to announce an intention
to sound like Larson. The structure of the final lovely ballad, "The Song of
Purple Summer" is an obvious homage to Larson's "Seasons of Love." However,
Larson would have had to team up with John Lennon and engage the services of
the Beatles' arranging producer, George Martin, to have come up with some of
the best of this work such as the haunting segment of "The Word of Your
Body" with the lovely repeated phrase on "Oh, I'm gonna be wounded. Oh, I'm
gonna be your wound. Oh, I'm gonna bruise you. Oh, your gonna be my bruise"
Heading the cast are Jonathan Groff and Lea
Michele as the lovers at the center of the action. Both bring clear voices,
youthful charm and a strong sense of sensuality to their individual roles,
and they have a chemistry between them that works well. The
secondary pair is less satisfying, Lauren Prichard because she's simply not
given enough to do and John Gallagher, Jr. because he overdoes some of what he is
given. Jonathan B. Wright stands out among the other boys while a trio of
girls impress - Lilli Cooper, Phoebe Strole and Remy Zaken. Of course,
since the rock sound is the sound of the teenage minds, the adult roles are
all essentially non-singing. In a nifty piece of staging,
all those adult roles are handled by just two performers. Christine Estabrook is all the adult women and Stephen Spinella all the adult men.
They are very good at creating separate characters without becoming too
cartoonish.
The show is not without some strange lapses
and disturbing choices. There are dead-end plot lines, sadly under-developed
secondary characters, un-explained and perhaps inexplicable hair styles, an
unclear rationale behind the set design and a distracting visual element
resulting from the decision to place some of the audience on the stage. But
every one of these seems a minor flaw in an excitingly successful project.
This season has already given us Grey Gardens,
another unorthodox musical based on material that seemed unlikely for Broadways musical stages. It is turning out to be a fascinating season.
Music by Duncan Sheik.
Book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Based on the play by Frank Wedekind. Directed by Michael Mayer. Choreographed by
Bill T. Jones. Fight direction by J. David Brimmer. Music Direction by
Kimberly Grigsby. Orchestrations by Duncan Sheik. Vocal arrangements by
AnnMarie Milazzo. Additional Arrangements by Simon Hale. Design: Christine
Jones (set) Susan Hilferty (costumes) Kevin Adams (lights) Brian Ronan
(sound). Cast: Skylar Astin, Gerard Canonico, Lilli Cooper, Jennifer Damiano,
Rob Devaney, Christine Estabrook, John Gallagher, Jr., Gideon Glick,
Jonathan Groff, Robert Hager, Brian Charles Johnson, Frances Mercanti-Anthony,
Lea Michele, Lauren Pritchard, Krysta Rodriguez, Stephen Spinella, Phoebe
Strole, Jonathan B. Wright, Remy Zaken.
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