Spring Awakening
West Yorkshire Playhouse

Spring Awakening's first English staging in New York back in 1917 required a court case win before its material was deemed acceptable for public viewing. Nearly a century later, an equally dark new Headlong adaptation of this controversial play was staged at the West Yorkshire Playhouse as part of a tour.

In keeping with the original German production more than a hundred years ago, Anya Reiss’re-imagining of Frank Wedekind’s controversial play instantly shocks when the lights come up on a uniformed schoolboy (Ekow Quartey) furiously masturbating on a toilet. Nicely juxtaposed is the calming sound of the audio track describing the portrayal of the female form in various art gallery exhibitions, providing unexpected stimulation.

Actors are projected onto a back screen signifying a change in focus as cast members freeze-frame to highlight a girl sitting on a bed front stage. It’s her birthday and she begs another adolescent character playing mum to borrow her dress. Meanwhile, a group of teens revising a scene from Othello discuss the existence of a sex scene before freeze-frames are used again to move between the male and female groups.

On stage is a door frame, swings and other playground equipment, allowing characters to absent-mindedly climb the set. Playing multiple parts and pointedly switching between them, a young cast replay past events as “themselves”, stepping into others characters that make up the story, occasionally hinting at events to come, cleverly creating intrigue.

The contrast between classical gallery music and the sexual thoughts characters verbalise is later well-imagined merely through headset props. A computer desktop is projected onto a back screen and characters move in time with self-projections before blinding house lights come up, mirroring character’s confusion and frustration.

In the final section (the whole play is broken up into seasons), the stage is full of chairs as the play’s final climax brings Wedekind’s story to a deliberately ambiguous conclusion. An uplifting penultimate scene as two characters dance and delightedly agree it’s “all beautiful now” counterpoints the boldly open ending, poignantly challenging audiences to interpret as they will.

For a play written such a long time ago, Spring Awakening is full of interesting ideas. There are plenty of moments that prove challenging to watch. Wendla (Aoife Duffin) is sexually curious, manifesting her repressed feelings in a desire to be beaten that later spirals out of control when she’s raped on stage after her mother misleadingly explains sex only matters if you love someone. Her regretful rapist disturbingly tries to excuse his actions.

Aside from sex, the play poses some deeper philosophical questions contemplating the ill-defined and man-made line between right and wrong; a tortured Melchoir (Oliver Johnstone) reflects: “You can’t help what makes you happy and you shouldn’t let other people judge you for it.”

Moritz explains, “life’s a matter of taste” before committing suicide and as a ghost afterwards reveals he’s now laughing at “the earnest struggle of living”.

Bursts of white noise between scenes reminds us of the pressures of a digital technological age where life’s answer can be found using Google and Youtube videos are the modern day suicide note. The show’s energetic soundtrack is perfectly-pitched by sound designer George Dennis, complementing Reiss’ expletive ridden script and Wedekind’s teen characters.

Convincing well-observed performances from language to mannerisms, expression and reactions are true of the whole cast, making Spring Awakening captivating from start to finish. Thought-provoking, interesting and daring in its dark representations of teen sexual awakening, this production is likely to divide theatre-goers expecting a traditional adaptation.

 Leo Owen