Spring Awakening: quaking bodies, aching loins
The funny, forthright musical theatre production touches on the darker sides of going through puberty in a conservative society. By
There are plenty of shocking moments. Such as seeing 19th-century German schoolboys, one moment reciting Latin while being picked on by their slimy schoolmaster, the next moment whipping out their handheld mics and rocking out like they’re at a punk concert. They belt out their rebellious lyrics in a display of anachronistic fervour; they stomp the stage; they dance on their chairs; there’s even crowd surfing.
That’s when you realise – quite rightly – that this is not your average musical.
Already you’ll have had your heartstrings plucked by an angel-voiced Scarlett Pay who, during the opening number, uses her potent singing skills to illuminate the fateful naïveté and innocence of a sweet, sexually curious girl named Wendla.
And, in due course, there will be a hilarious and heartfelt homoerotic duet during a seduction scene with a self-confident seducer and a boy who is oh-so-willingly seduced.
There’ll be your own surprise as you tap your toes and probably dance a bit in your seat to Totally Fucked with its forthright lyrics and catchy tune. And fits of laughter during a scene of unbridled masturbation.
Or those scenes that comedically grapple with all the weird and wonderful things that can become objects of erotic desire: the comedy of a teenage boy’s fantasy as he gets worked up by his piano teacher’s bosoms.
One number – Touch Me – evokes the sensation of your first orgasm.
And there’s a young man’s bare bum during a scene of virginal lovemaking, rendered with unflinching sincerity, its realness a counterpoint to all the gloriously frolicsome hip-thrusting and pounding pandemonium of the more energetic musical numbers, choreographed to leave you breathless.
It’s one hell of a sexy musical, and unapologetically so.
But, be warned: Spring Awakening, back on the boards in Cape Town (and in Johannesburg in April) after a short season late last year, is not your typical night of sugar-coated escapism. The anachronistic rock music is only the first of its many shocks.
Inner life
For one thing, unlike most musicals, Spring Awakening’s songs aren’t there to merely propel the story forward, but to reveal the unsayable, the characters’ hard-to-express emotional interior. It’s from the songs that we learn of their often harrowing inner lives. We don’t so much get their turmoil explained to us but are instead made to feel what they’re feeling.
While the stage is absolutely awash with hormones, what’s more in focus is the intrigue, exasperation, confusion and even panic that arises as a result of the onset of puberty with all its aroused body parts, erotic dreams and forbidden fantasies.
And, apart from many of the frustrations and fears experienced during puberty, more malignant issues are examined, too. It’s here that Spring Awakening fearlessly gets its fingers dirty, penetrates deeply into the darker quadrants of human frailty: in this world, children are physically and sexually abused, parents beat their sons and daughters, teachers conspire to break those who need their support the most, and the church preaches its message from on high but is never a force for love.
Rooted in the dynamics of ultra-conservative Lutheran society in late 19th-century Germany, where the adults are too embarrassed to talk openly to their offspring, children are forced to make their own way in the world. Their discoveries run the gamut – from boys learning that those weird, wet dreams are perfectly normal, to hearing that a girl is being abused by her own father.
It is unsparing in its sensitivity to the inner-world experiences of the children it portrays.
Transforming theatre
During its initial run in New York, where it won the 2007 Tony Award for best musical, fans wrote to members of the cast, expressing gratitude for having their childhood stories of struggle and loneliness represented.
Given the upsurge in radical right-wing politics, the war on wokeness, the surge of attacks on personal freedom and on the rights of young people to live openly according to their felt identity, the show is possibly even more relevant today than when it came out almost two decades ago.
Director Sylvaine Strike’s method is to work the material to get at its truth and, for the audience, the great reward is that you find yourself so immersed in the experience that you’re never simply watching the entertainment unfold, you’re participating in a ritual. It’s impossible to witness the incredible changes these characters go through without being transformed a bit, too.
It’s hard to believe that most of the actors are students from the Luitingh Alexander Musical Theatre Academy. Their level of commitment, skill and energy is such that you cannot take your eyes off them. They sing their hearts out and dance as if their lives depend on it.
Much of their confidence on stage comes from the tight musical direction, and from the effervescent choreography. Their routines not only make your heart gallop, but they’ve also used movement to more deeply express the inner lives of the characters. So too the deceptively simple set design, atmospheric lighting and costumes help create a visually cohesive world.
This show is a genuine triumph, a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows, tenderness and raunchiness, great big laughs and tears rolling down your cheeks. It is naughty, it’s unflinching, and it will shake you to your core. See it.
Spring Awakening