Turbulence Of Youth Told Off-Broadway
The turbulence of youth — sad, sweet and, more often than not, sexual — stands front and center in "Spring Awakening," a remarkable, ambitious new musical by pop songwriter and singer Duncan Sheik and playwright Steven Sater.
The show, receiving its world premiere at off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company, challenges notions of conventional musical theater. It rigidly divides story and song.
Adapted by Sater from Frank Wedekind's classic drama, this "Spring Awakening" has its story firmly placed in the world of provincial 19th-century Germany. Yet its score resonates with gritty, contemporary pop-rock sounds; its often raucous music is laced with tough, pungent lyrics, some of them of the four-letter-word variety.
But when quiet moments are called for, Sheik and Sater are up to the task, most notably in the wistful, poetic "There Once Was a Pirate," a hypnotic number that opens the second act.
At first, it may seem a little disconcerting to see cast members, the boys dressed in knee britches and the girls in plain, old-fashioned dresses, pull out hand-held microphones and begin to sing. Yet book, music and lyrics soon become strangely complementary. The defiance and the yearning of the songs are matched by the raw emotions in these episodic tales told by the cast, mostly youthful performers.
Two older actors, Frank Wood and Mary McCann, portray all the adults — from unsympathetic and uncaring parents to tyrannical teachers to platitudinous clergy.
"Spring Awakening" focuses most prominently on three youngsters — Melchoir, the defiant but popular and handsome rebel; Wendla, the shy young woman determined to learn about sex; and Moritz, done in by the repressive society around him.
Director Michael Mayer uses the intimate Atlantic theater (a former church in Chelsea) to good advantage. He places members of the audience — as well as cast members when they aren't performing — on either side of the nearly bare stage. It gives the evening a rock-concert feeling.
His cast often prowls the playing area. Their movements are fluid, dancelike, most likely the work of the show's choreographer Bill T. Jones. The action may stop when characters deliver a song, but Mayer never lets the momentum slacken.
His young performers throw themselves into the show with abandon, and there are several stunning portraits. John Gallagher Jr., who already scored this year with a heartbreaking performance in the Tony-nominated "Rabbit Hole," delivers an equally affecting portrait here as the doomed Moritz.
Lea Michele, with a strong, pure voice, is a superb Wendla, who finds a soul mate in Melchoir, portrayed by Jonathan Groff, a leading man with rock-star good looks. It's a relationship that has nowhere to go except tragedy.
But then throughout the piece, "Spring Awakening" is unsparing in its lack of sentimentality. One girl sings of being molested by her father. The meeting of two gay boys has a predatory feeling to it, too, with the more knowing lad manipulating the other.
There is an unnerving intensity to the youngsters in this show that both Sheik, with his hard-driving but often melancholy score, and Sater, with his spare, direct lyrics, capture perfectly.
"I'm calling to know the world's true yearning — the hunger that a child feels for everything they're shown," sings the bewildered Melchoir near the beginning of the evening. It could be an anthem for the children stumbling into adulthood in this adventurous, thoroughly compelling musical.
By Michael Kuchwara