By snoadmin
Fourteen-year-old Wendla is told ardently by her mother that her sister’s baby was a gift from the stork, young Moritz thirsts for the elusive specifics about sex and his classmate Melchior is branded a criminal for being honest and frank about one of man’s most fundamental needs.
It is clear from the beginning of “Spring Awakening” that the pubescent youths in Frank Wedekind’s tragedy live in an entirely different world from the one that we know today. Sex is considered obscene and something to be hushed up – the budding adults around whom the story hangs are kept ignorant of the basic facts of reproduction even as its forces are coursing uncontrollably through their veins.
Both ironically and not surprisingly, “Spring Awakening” was considered obscene and frequently banned after it was published in 1891, for Wedekind’s bold depiction of the sexually repressive German society in which he lived was far from flattering. He went so far as to dedicate the work to the parents and teachers around him, in effect revealing how, in his opinion, the damage done to their children was blood on their hands alone.
CSULB’s University Players are not afraid to look scandal in the eye with this production. Themes and topics as controversial as rape, masturbation, suicide and self-discovery are all tackled without sugarcoating or pandering. The nature of the play assumes that the audience is prepared to deal with the potent reality of teenage angst, transition, and revelation.
Staged in the three-sided thrust style, the set for “Spring Awakening” serves a prominent role in communicating the mood and context of the society in which the young characters live. The action takes place around chain-link fences that are moved and lifted to create locations and give tangibility to the cage-like lives the children are trapped in, and the cold lighting suggest the harshness of the authority under which they live.
CSULB’s theater students do an excellent job of acting in this production, and they have no trouble convincing the audience of their characters’ relative ages despite none being more than a few years older than any other. In a well-honed, masterful fashion, the curiosity and confusion of the innocent teenagers is starkly contrasted by the parents and teachers who crush their inquisitiveness and keep them brutally out of touch with their own bodies.
The play is a true tragedy, and Wedekind doesn’t hesitate to portray the causalities left by the hypocritical society he depicts. However, “Spring Awakening” does not neglect the joys of childhood naivete and growing maturity alike, and introduces a character who reminds us of the possibilities of free will and redemption when life seems to be at its bleakest.
The treatment of sexual repression and exploration in “Spring Awakening” was truly ahead of its time. Now, as debates continue to rage in the 21st century over the nature of morality, we can still appreciate the importance of honesty and the destructive force of shame in a play with themes that ring just as true today as they did over a century ago.
“Spring Awakening” runs through Nov. 3 at 7 pm Tuesday though Thursday and 8 pm on Friday and Saturday at the Studio Theatre.
