|
Spring's Awakening
NORTHERN LIGHTS It is hard to believe that Frank Wedekind's visionary play, "Spring's Awakening", was written a century ago. Its subject is the awakening of sexuality in adolescence, during the Victorian times when such matters were duly suppressed. Drawing parallels with today's permissive society with its numerous contradictions is at the core of the theme. We follow four school boys grappling with their natural urges against the stark background of iron-clad morality and how each copes in different ways in their surrender or control. Four girls and two staunch but well-meaning mothers complete the basic cast with two professors and the principal of the stiffling school the boys attend. Seen against today's loose but dual standards, the rigidity of Germany's bourgeois society may seem pitiably laughable, or is it? Yes, the media gives teens relatively free access to explicit sexuality, but most remain confused about expressing it, the likes of Clinton/Monica junior high school antics perpetrators notwithstanding. This piece is not for the faint of heart or abstinence clan, as every aspect of teen sexuality is openly and even graphically explored, including suicide, onanism, rape, sadomasochism, violence, cutting, pregnancy, abortion, and ... repression, the preferred course, the result of which is a pervading sense of deep shame which poisons any potential of a healthy future relationship. Fourteen year old Wendla's mother wants her daughter to believe in the arrival of the stork, either through the window or the chimney, that is the question, after her aunt receives yet another blessing after several months of confinement due to a long bout of 'influenza'. Wendla confronts her mother, who cannot bring herself to tell her more than generalities about loving a man so much, and in a certain way. Interestingly, today's parents often do no better, as sexuality is the ultimate private frontier between two mature and consenting individuals. When Wendla is raped by Melchior, her mother hopes for a spontaneous miscarriage, but hastens it with lethal abortion pills, sending her daughter to an early grave and yet saving her honor. Moritz chooses to end it all with a gun, after an agonizing near sexual encounter with vixen Ilse. But, in an eery ghost scene, he comes back to taunt, then warn his friend Melchior, also tentalized with the thought of ending it all. All teens grapple with the existentialist idea they had no choice in being born but must live moral lives as a consequence of their own parents' implicit sexuality, even though their perverse thoughts lead them on the brink of eternal damnation if not, even worse, atheism, and the alure of death in its irrevocable finality. Eric Alicea as Melchior, Casey Long as Hans, Brian Weed as Moritz and Meredith Young as Wendla carry the play, with Karen Webster and Elizabeth Willaman as grandes dames Mrs. Gabor and Bergmann, Melchior and Wendla's respective mothers. Casey Long shines in a demanding role which does not shirk sexually explicit scenes of great sensitivity and realism, yet tastefully represented in dramatic half tones. The three professors give us a hilarious judgmental scene with its avoidance tactics, especially Joseph Horn's stuttering routine. Alex Bueno as Martha and Heather Howe as Ilse also give great performances. Wedekind gives us a lush world of sensuous images hidden
in the most benign evocations of hay, or stream, or winds, all drawing
unsuspecting youths to their siren-like lure. The lyrical traduction is
owed to Carl Mueller, with Jocelyn Brown as Director. Brown is no stranger
to the Chance, and has had a hand in many of the company's most thought
provoking pieces.
[top]
WALLFOUR.COM Take a show written in 1891, formulate it around the archaic fundamentals of the era, express it didactically through the wordy language of the day, perform it today and what have you got? Something called a period piece? Or something that is simply past its springtime? Step back to a time when a girl's coming of age lengthened her hemline, and let Chance Theater director, Jocelyn A. Brown show you that Frank Wedekind's Spring's Awakening is anything but seasonal. Outrageous in its time, in our time, Spring's Awakening is still shocking to witness. Considering that it was scarcely a century ago when Wedekind awakened controversy, it is difficult to believe that so recently these views were considered standard and contemporary. The success of the production lies in its ability to relate the practiced ignorance of yesterday with the naiveté that continues today. The language in the script is rich, and the cast harnesses it nicely to deliver it to us in a manner that still feels natural. Though some of the performances struggle in the piece, we are fortunate that the major roles uphold the powerful and passionate sentiments of the show, and thus in full force we partake in the show's gravity and the complex relationships within it. Immediately we know how far from the birds and bees we are when we listen to the talk between young and blossoming Wendla (Meredith Young) and her mother, Mrs. Bergmann (Elizabeth Willaman). Being brought up in the Bergmann household means conception only comes out of true love, and babies are still being delivered by way of stork. As puberty allows Wendla to witness her own development, the intensity of her relationship with her mother develops as well. In her sexual curiosities, Young is perfect in that she contains herself within her role and does not overstate it into something childish. In this way she genuinely defines her age and the age within she has been raised. Inaccurate and incomplete motherly advice is not the limit of Willaman's performance. As Mrs. Bergman, Willaman achingly displays a deeper level of conflict within the show. Confined within her boundaries of motherhood, she is torn between what is proper and what she knows would keep her daughter from the same ignorance that blinded her own youth. Parental pressure is not limited to the Bergmann household, however. In the Gabor family we find two parents struggling with the upbringing of their son Melchior (Eric Alicea). Unlike Wendla, Melchior seems already too well versed with the birds and bees talk as he has already written a friendly dissertation on das ficken. The conflict brought to the stage here is done well by the Gabor parents (Karen Webster and Ventura Alvarez). Their scene involving how to discipline their troubled and in-trouble teen paces nicely as it unravels their own history together, through their consistent differing in their son's upbringing. As Mrs. Gabor, Webster, also develops a nice relationship with Melchior's best and underachieving schoolmate, Moritz (Brian Weed). Though Mortiz' parents never come on stage, the extent of their reach upon their son is still harshly felt, and Mrs. Gabor's stand-in-mothering of him helps to round out the familial dynamics of this boy she has taken under her wing, and ultimately illustrates the despair and alienation of Moritz' character. In the role, Brian Weed brings a lot of his own tension to the stage, and profoundly shows its roots in feelings of guilt and shame for the inclinations that come naturally to him and his peers. His role is pushed even further through an examination as to whether these reactions of guilt are learned. Certainly his conversations with his best friend are pre-sex education, for it would be difficult today to find a teen who would be that verbose and articulate about the discovery of his hard-on. But the two play well off of each other and their chemistry helps to bring some of the most honest and genuine performances to the stage, most notably when Weed returns in the second act. In the first act however, we are given the most violently energetic scene in the show. With a meeting between Wendla and Melchior, we begin a scene with motivations fueled by innocence and ignorance and funnel it through sexual frustration. As a result we now have a scene that moves delicately from sheer curiosity and desire into masochistic role playing until it eventually climaxes into closed fisted misogyny and rape. The level of desensitization that the participants of this scene postcoitally express in their later scenes exhibit the true brutality of their ignorance. With the many other roles in the script, it was sometimes difficult to follow who was who when actors were doubling up on roles. Some of the costume changes and characterization differences were not obvious enough to a dummkopf like myself to distinguish between all of the multiple roles on the playground. However the effect of this on the production is minimal. The overall feel that director Jocelyn A. Brown created was still most poignant. With nude marble statues adorning the stage in the roles of beech and oak trees, a circle jerk off in the corner, and an outstanding high-art masturbatory monologue delivered by Casey Long, we see how much sexuality pervades our lives. To not acknowledge it, and to not address it honestly is the true shame that surrounds and defines the show. We see this most brutally in the show's consequences, which unfortunately would be unfair to reveal in a review. Repeatedly throughout the show, boys and girls
alike discuss how they will raise their children differently than they
themselves have been raised. With where are today, have these awakened
youths of Wedekind done so? Have they taken bigger steps forward in their
parenting than their parents had for them? Or have they simply parented
in a more treacherous direction? And the generations after? From her director's
note, I'm sure Jocelyn has a lot to say about it. But there's no need
to ask her, just go to The Chance Theater...she's already got it springing
all over the stage.
[top]
ORANGE COUNTY
REGISTER Ask anyone: Today's teens are far more sophisticated than those of 100 years ago. Or are they? Teens today can find sexual images and information just about anywhere they turn; incidences of teen pregnancies, abortions and school shootings seem to be on the rise each year - all of which makes "Spring's Awakening" that much more relevant. The Frank Wedekind play addresses all of these issues, depicting adolescents and their struggles with self-esteem and self-awareness about their sexual identities. In the process, "Spring's Awakening" covers a lot of ground - homosexuality, abortion, suicide and more. The play, however, has received relatively little attention until recently, when Carl R. Mueller, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, translated it from the original German. Subtitled "A Children's Tragedy," Wedekind's play was written in 1891, when Victorian manners and mores were still the norm throughout Western Europe. And if sexual language, images and materials are considered too accessible today, in Wedekind's Germany the problem was the opposite: Parents did not speak to their children about sexual matters. It would be considered improper for them to do so. Controversial from its outset, "Spring's Awakening" was labeled as pornographic and banned from performance in Germany. Though as frank as anything written for the stage by Ibsen, the play remained unproduced until the 1960s - all of which makes the Chance Theater's new staging of the Mueller translation something of a landmark among Orange County's independent theater troupes. Director Jocelyn A. Brown has a tremendous amount of respect for Wedekind's concepts and characters, even infusing the script's few moments of comic relief with a degree of tasteful restraint. Her cast of 13 follows Brown's conceit of "Spring's Awakening" as an intimate look at a society that refuses to deal candidly with sex, and the devastating effect that stance has toward young teens whose hormones are raging and who burn not only with sexual desire but also with curiosity toward the physical and psychological changes occurring within them. The story focuses on the friendship of Melchior (Eric Alicea) and Moritz (Brian Weed), adolescents on the verge of graduating public school and moving on to studying at the university level. Higher learning, though, is just about the last thing on their minds. Their waking hours are filled with thoughts of girls, while sexual dreams pervade their sleep. A convenience of the play's schematic, the boys are two sides of the same coin: Melchior has accepted that sex is an integral part of life, is ready for his role as a man and understands (more or less) sex's physical rudiments. Ignorant of the facts, Moritz lives in denial. Guilt and shame are his constant companions and, as he confesses to Melchior, he can't even have a conversation with a girl "without thinking something disgusting." Wedekind's blueprint is just a little too pat, with Moritz struggling not only with his sexual nature but with his studies as well. It might have been more interesting had Melchior been a bright student ignorant of sex and Moritz weak academically but knowing in worldly ways. This factor and some of the related plot lines paint "Spring's Awakening" as an unsophisticated, genuinely simplistic treatment of a vital subject. Even so, this is a solid staging of a worthwhile play. Alicea, Weed and their cast mates are obviously much older than the youthful characters they portray, but a combination of credible acting and Brown's adept direction create the illusion we're watching 14- and 15-year-olds undergo the wrenching pains of leaving the innocence of childhood behind and taking on the duties of adulthood. In the focal role of Moritz, Weed personifies the despair and hopelessness that typify many an adolescent. Though more calm and self-assured, Alicea's Melchior is an attractive combination of sophistication and innocence. Noteworthy too are Meredith Young and Heather Howe who, like Alicea and Weed, portray polar opposites. Young's 14-year-old Wendla is refreshing in her purity, her fixation on cruelty and poverty marking the girl's lofty idealism. As Ilse, Howe ably represents the "bad" girl who enjoys complete sexual freedom and whose lifestyle both attracts and repels Moritz. As Melchior's mother, Karen Webster represents leniency and sympathy for her son, while Ventura Alvarez, as the boy's father, suspects that this free rein has made the boy "rotten to the core." Erika Ceporius Miller's black, white, gray and
earth- tone costumes are aptly subdued, combining with Brown's choice
of somber Brahms music to give the play a sober, Ibsenesque air. As a
matter of course, today's audiences might find "Spring's Awakening"
too talky and slow moving - and while Brown couldn't realistically rewrite
the text, she could have varied the pacing to create more of sense of
urgency. Even so, Wedekind's ideas are always intriguing, and if this
staging prompts parents to talk with their kids about sex, then it has
served its purpose.
[top]
AOL DIGITAL CITY True to form, the Chance is tackling a rich but obscure work with an edgy subject matter. The same company that recently brought you a mixed-media biography of a Surrealist muse, Lee Miller, now presents a disturbing and poignant look at sexual awakening in a society that treats sex as taboo. Originally written in German, it caused quite a hubbub when playwright Frank Wedekind originally presented it in the 1800s. Society at the time had no idea how to deal with the issues that people today are still grappling with: Abortion, homosexuality and suicide are only a few of the controversial issues. The Chance's production manager refers to this play as
"gripping" in one breath and "hard to watch" in the
next. In the context of the play, that's not a contradiction. UCLA professor
Carl R. Mueller provides a brutally explicit and authentic translation
from German into modern English. Director Jocelyn A. Brown was assistant
director for 'The Angel & the Fiend.'
[top]
|