Spring Awakening - Susan Reiter

"Spring Awakening"

“Spring Awakening”
music by Duncan Sheik, book and lyrics by Steven Sater
Directed by Michael Mayer
Choreography by Bill T. Jones
Atlantic Theater Company
New York, NY
July 18, 2006 [performances continue through August 5]

by Susan Reiter
copyright ©2006 by Susan Reiter

The few recent new musicals that are not attempts to cash in on the “juke box musical” phenomenon, that are serious attempts to propel the form forward, have not been ones in which dance plays an important role. Last year’s stunning “Light in the Piazza,” now about to launch its national tour, has many virtues, but its luminous staging does not give pride of place to choreography. “Grey Gardens,” an intriguing recent off-Broadway production that is making the move to Broadway in November, features two riveting central characters and a story that spans three decades, but relies only slightly on dance. Donald Byrd’s contribution as choreographer of “The Color Purple,” one of last season’s big (and more old-fashioned) new musicals, is more substantial, and did attract some attention (and a Tony nomination) for robust ensemble dances that help set the tone as the show’s saga winds its way through the decades. But since Twyla Tharp won the 2003 Tony Award for choreography for “Movin’ Out,” the award has gone to those who worked on revivals, rather than new shows.

Bill T. Jones, with his fiercely personal vision and high-profile persona, is not a choreographer one might have expected to became part of the intensely collaborative process that nurtures a musical, but twice in recent months he has contributed the choreography to new shows. Both have been presented by non-profit institutional theaters with sterling reputations. Earlier this season he was the choreographer for “The Seven,” a hip-hop adaptation of Aeschylus’ “Seven Against Thebes,” presented by New York Theater Workshop. His contribution to “Spring Awakening,” a bracing new musical at the Atlantic Theater Company that manages to be both daring and familiar, blends seamlessly into this volatile tale of sexually blooming adolescents bumping up against the repression and intolerance of authority figures.

Based on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play — which was considered scandalous and banned, or severely edited, for decades — the musical retains the time frame of the original, while using Duncan Sheik’s alternately angst-filled and ferociously explosive music to allow them to express their fury and desires in quite contemporary terms. The point is clearly, is not explicitly made: that teenagers face the same struggles today; that enforced conformity, or misleading efforts to shield them in the hopes of prolonging their innocence can have savage results. Certainly the show’s themes are ones that one can imagine Jones relating to, and his choreography is most prominent in several numbers where the adolescents really break out to vent their frustrations, mock their teachers or parents, and release the charging forces they are being told to rein in or (preferably) ignore.

The first time they burst into frenzied, stiff jumps and strike angular, mechanistic poses is quite exhilarating and almost scary. The six schoolboys, in their buttoned up uniforms (which feature knockers and high grey socks) have been mindlessly reciting “The Aenead” like soulless, numb automatons, when suddenly they break out to rage about “The Bitch of Living.” Their energy, as they leave their regimented seating to let loose about where their heads are really at, is searing.; Limbs jerk, bodies contort — nothing is remotely pretty here.

During the show’s first, disquietingly calm moments, as the young heroine Wendla stands on a chair and sings plaintively while putting on an absurdly flimsy, childlike frock, she touches herself, not so much in an overtly sexual way, but in a manner that suggests a need to discover and understand just what her body is about. Later, in the most raucous, taunting number for all the teenagers, the self-touching is multiplied and intensified, becoming as repeated motif executed with almost military precision.

Certainly the themes of exploring and accepting one’s body, and facing off against enforced sense of shame, tie in with much of Jones’ preivous work. The production creates a world in which the kids are trapped, limited in both their space and their options. There are audience members seated on both sides of the stage, and three wide stairs descend practically into the laps of those seated in the conventional front row. When they try to push away the boundaries hemming them in, the youthful performers push forward confrontationally, and they often enter or exit from within those side rows.

The sharp focus and contained energy of the entire production reflect the expert, confident and unadorned direction by Michael Mayer. His casting choices are often astute, though only one female cast members truly looks the age these kids are meant to be: 14 or 15. But the young actors do a more than creditable job of persuading us they are these not-so-innocent schoolkids bumping up enforced regimentation. Most of the time, the girls and the boys seem to occupy separate existences, so that when the reflective, articulate Melchior and the poignantly innocent Wendla meet up in an open field, one already senses rules being broken.

Jonathan Groff as Melchior and John Gallagher Jr. as the introverted, confused Moritz are superb. Lea Michele’s haunting singing makes her Wendla an affecting portrait, but her dramatic scenes feel forced and lack spontaneity. The show itself touches on well-known and somewhat obvious themes, which veer towards the heavy-handed when all the adult figures are presented as so brutally insensitive and blind to everything that is really happening. But the songs, and their presentation, have a searing power and mournful eloquence.

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"Spring Awakening"