Spring Awakening was Frank Wedekind’s first play. He had it published at his own expense in 1891, but it was not performed until Wedekind started his own repertory company in 1906. The first production in the United States took place in 1912, but since the play was in German it failed to attract audiences in the States. This play was performed at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster on 27 October 2013. This was my first time to see a live play on stage. The play was performed on a proscenium theatre. Centering on the lives of 11 young adults, “Spring Awakening” takes on controversial topics of today such as sexuality, abortion, rape, and suicide. The play, although controversial on the surface, presents an opportunity for audiences to recognize the importance of issues such as consent, safety and sexual assault. This was a musical play. As this was based on one of the controversial pieces of literature that was banned for one hundred years, Spring Awakening is the tale of teenagers on the road of self-discovery. The story takes placed in Germany 1891 where the parents know best, the story started off with the young and beautiful girl, Wendla Bergman. Wendla has so many questions about what was going on in her body and how a baby is made. Wendla’s mother dismisses her question and tells her to change into a proper dress. There was the dreamy and fearless boy who doesn’t believe in anything, Melchior Gabor. His friend, Moritz Steiffel, who was astounded with puberty, cannot focus on the Latin drill in his class. The Headmaster begins to yells at Moritz, but Melchior steps in to defend his friend and ends up offending the Headmaster. Melchior and Moritz both end up getting striked before returning to the lesson. After learning that Moritz was so consumed by his body’s metamorphosis, Melchior writes an essay describing what’s going on, with both males and females.
Wendla and Melchior run into each other in the woods. After learning that one of Wendla’s friends was beaten up by the friend’s father, she requests Melchior do the same to her, because she has never felt real pain. At the beginning Melchior hesitates but soon gets irritated and beats Wendla. After Melchior realizes what he has done, he runs away ashamed of himself. Wendla runs into Melchior once again. The two find themselves in position so unmentionable and so desirable, that the two have an awakening in their bodies and soul. They have sex. While this was happening, Moritz learns that since his teachers do not like him so therefore they are failing him. When Mortiz’s father gets to know about this, he beats Mortiz for being such a supposed disgrace to the family. Moritz begs Melchior’s mother to help him flee to America, but declines. He heads to woods with a gun, with the plan of killing himself. While wandering in the woods distraught, he bumps into his free-spirited friend Isle, whose father abused her as well. She describes all the promises life has to offer, but he does not listen and leaves her there. That was when he sticks the gun in his mouth and fires. The Headmaster pin this event on Melchior, claiming the essay he gave him the cause of Mortiz’s suicide and therefore Melchior was expelled. He was then sent to a boarding school. Meanwhile, Wendla’s mother learns that her daughter was pregnant and learns that Melchior was the father. By the time Melchior hears this, it is too late to do anything, because Wendla was overdosed with abortion pills. With both of his beloved friends dead, Melchior must find a reason to go on with his life.
Spring Awakening addresses a large number of loosely related themes primarily through a series of dialogues. The plot lacks a clear structure, and some of the characters are indistinguishable from one another. Wendla, Moritz, and Melchior are best viewed as a triangle. The three characters both interact with and act in parallel to each other as each struggle to make the transition to adulthood. The title of the play, Spring Awakening, refers to both the incipient adulthood and the incipient sexuality of the children who form its center. Both meanings suggest beginnings, the promise of the future, and a period of warmth and peace. However, by the play’s end two characters are dead – one by suicide, one by a botched abortion. Some major themes found in this play were sexuality, religion, education, gender, relationship between parents and children, shame and authority. The frank sexuality and sexual experimentation depicted in Spring Awakening immediately positioned it as an extremely controversial work. This also includes the scenes of homosexuality. Especially in light of the fact that Hanschen and Ernst’s relationship carries none of the tragic consequences of Wendla and Melchior’s. Organized religion is depicted in an extremely negative light in Spring Awakening. Melchior, in some ways the most positive figure of the play, is an atheist, and his difficulties with religious belief are expressed in a believable and open manner. Different characters in the play represent different theories about education. In Spring Awakening, relationships between parents and children seem fraught with danger. Almost no parent seems to be successful at bringing up their children to live as they did. Moritz kills himself, Wendla dies, Melchior must displace his parents with the man in the mask, Martha’s parents abuse her to the point where it seems she wants to kill them, and Ilse’s parents seem to be entirely absent.
Spring Awakening explores the idea of shame and the effects it can have on a person. Moritz asks Melchior whether he thinks “the sense of shame is simply a product of upbringing.” Spring Awakening does not question the reality of shame; instead, it raises questions about its uses, effects, and place in a community or family. The similarities and differences between women and men are explored throughout the play. When the girls discuss whether they’d rather have boy or girl children, when Melchior and Moritz wonder whether girls feel the same urges they do. Overall, the theme of gender in Spring Awakening explores how differences are perceived through the lens of gender, and how divisive these ideas of difference can become. Several different kinds of authority figures are represented throughout the play: religious authority, state authority, parental authority, medical authority, and personal authority. Most of these authority figures are undermined, shown either to be corrupt or at least incompetent. However, personal authority often leads to no better – and indeed, often even worse – results. Melchior and Moritz go wrong when they attempt to act completely independently. The set portrayed a wooden bridge, brick walls and elevated floors. The properties that were repeatedly utilized in the play were chairs, tables and lanterns. A piano was also used at the beginning of the play. All the costumes used by the performers resembled the early 1900s. Some the characters in the play were performed by the same performers. For example, the teacher from the Latin drill, Mortiz’s Father and the Church pastor were played by the same performer. Microphones were used by the performers to reach the audience better. But the use of microphones was never considered an integral part of theatre. I was seeing the play from the sides of the stage. So, some of the scenes cannot be properly viewed from this viewpoint as the
play is ideally meant to be viewed from where audience usually are seated. The performers performed great acting. It showed their keen dedication for the play. On the whole, I enjoyed watching this play.
