Spring Awakening

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Spring Awakening

Brooks Atkinson Theatre, NYC, October 3, 2015

Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes

Sandra Mae Frank & Austin P. McKenzie Photo: Kevin Parry
Sandra Mae Frank & Austin P. McKenzie
Photo: Kevin Parry

“Listen to what’s in the heart of a child a song so big in one so small.” — the final message of Spring Awakening.

Nine years after its original production on Broadway, Spring Awakening is back, re-imagined with quite a difference at The Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The Deaf West Theatre production brings a fiercely talented mix of young hearing and deaf performers to tell the tales of Wendla, Melchior, Ernst, Ilse and all the teens struggling with their sexuality.
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Bringing in the beauty of American Sign Language adds pure poetry to the drama and music as they face some tragic issues, child abuse, unplanned pregnancy and suicide.

Based on Frank Wedekind’s 19th century German play, Spring Awakening was adapted by librettist/lyricist Steven Sater with passionate ballads and rock energy by composer Duncan Sheik, sweeping you into the world of youthful yearnings and rebellion. In this production, under director Michael Arden’s hand, what might sound like complicated changes play out with remarkable fluidity by the deaf and hearing actors. The mix adds a deeper nuance to the problems of communicating adolescent questions and desires to repressed parents and educators. The deaf actors illustrate their feelings beautifully in graceful physicality and sign language, while hearing actors’ voices speak and sing their words. Occasionally, everyone is signing and the words are illuminated behind them on a blackboard.

The place is a conservative community in Germany. The time: 1891. In this ensemble, a leading character is young Wendla Bergmann, played by hearing-impaired Sandra Mae Frank. Shadowing her is Katie Boeck, a speaking and singing alter-ego. Wendla’s song, “Mama Who Bore Me,” opens the show as she expressively pleads for her embarrassed mother to explain life, sexuality and love, her face and movements as eloquent as Boeck’s lovely voice behind her.

Wendla’s love interest, the confident Melchior Gabor, is portrayed by a hearing actor, Austin P. McKenzie, who uses his own voice but also signs and drives the ensemble in a rockin’ “Totally Fucked.” The most tragic figure is the troubled and frustrated Moritz Stiegel, played by deaf Daniel N. Durant (voice by a charismatic Alex Bonillo). His frustration comes to a head with “The Bitch of Living.
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” Around them, other students sign or sing as a chorus, including one confident young singer/actress wheelchair-bound Ali Stoker, in her Broadway debut. Two notable smaller segments include the rebellious Krysta Rodriguez as Ilse, who comes close to saving Moritz after they meet, remember and together sing “Blue Wind,” and abused Martha (Treshelle Edmond) with her voice by Kathryn Gallagher.

Playing multiple roles are well-known adult actors Marlee Matlin and Camryn Manheim who stand out as two mothers with different nurturing philosophies who both face the results of the their children’s traumas. Patrick Page and Russell Harvard play several roles as educators and the fathers.

Just as the audience is taking their seats, Michael Arden brings the young cast onstage wearing only white underwear. They are signing, stretching, giggling and dressing before the show begins. When the story is over, all remove their clothes again, down to the white undies, and again, everyone is silent, signing and equal. These are small, meaningful touches.

Scenic and costume designer Dane Jaffrey dressed everyone in 1890s period clothes, although many of the hearing performers wore contemporary dress.
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Jaffrey’s set is spacious, with stairs to an upper level holding a four-piece band with piano and strings, accompanying the show with vigorous rhythms as well as delicate support behind the ballads.

By the end, grieving survivors voice their hope that by listening to the children, their lost friends will be remembered: “The sadness, the doubt, all the loss, the grief, will belong to some play from the past.”

While the same communication issues were explored in the 2006 production, they take on a sharper and more passionate edge here.

Elizabeth Ahlfors

Born and raised in New York, Elizabeth graduated from NYU with a degree in Journalism. She has lived in various cities and countries and now is back in NYC. She has written magazine articles and published three books: A Housewife’s Guide to Women’s Liberation, Twelve American Women, and Heroines of ’76 (for children). A great love was always music and theater—in the audience, not performing. A Philadelphia correspondent for Theatre.com and InTheatre Magazine, she has reviewed theater and cabaret for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City News. She writes for Cabaret Scenes and other cabaret/theater sites. She is a judge for Nightlife Awards and a voting member of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle.