IN UTERO

The theory is that, after September 11, musical theatre became a glowing beacon of escapist entertainment – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Consider the new musicals that have made the biggest splash in recent years: Hairspray, Mamma Mia! (enthusiasm theirs) and its copycat jukebox musicals, numerous movie musicals (Legally Blonde just hit the West End), and, of course, the juggernaut that is Wicked, hitting Broadway like something dropped from the sky – which is pretty much as escapist as it gets. Everybody, come look! A shiny thing!
It’s fair to say, then, that we weren’t expecting a new musical about teen sex, touching on themes of child abuse, abortion, masochism, homosexuality and suicide – and featuring a boarding school wanking contest scene. Not until the next High School Musical anyway.
Spring Awakening opened in New York in 2006, where it was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won eight, including the awards for Best Musical and Best Score. The Broadway cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. The show has since been performed in Tokyo, Seoul, Rio de Janeiro, Vienna, Manila and Budapest, and it had its London debut at the Lyric Hammersmith last year. It’s been hailed as the musical that has revitalised the genre and an American movie adaptation, directed by McG (God help us), is on the way. You’re reading about it here because it’s opening the 2010 Sydney Theatre Company season, the first non-replica English-speaking production of the show.
So is it all it’s cracked up to be? Steven Sater’s book is based on an 1891 play of the same name by Frank Wedekind, but it’s not a contemporary re-imagining of the source material, a la La Bohème and Rent, to which it’s often compared. It sticks closely to the original play: in a provincial German town at the end of the 19th Century, the repressed youth are discovering their own sexuality. Teenage angst is timeless. The difference is, in this new version, the characters occasionally whip out microphones, burst into song and bust a move or two.
The shtick with the microphones gives something away about Spring Awakening. The key is that it doesn’t behave like a musical. It’s a play with songs, a traditional costume drama crossed with a rock concert, where the two components exist separately of one another. There’s no glitter, no pomp and, defying the cardinal rule of musical theatre that the songs must advance the plot, the songs here are the character’s internal monologues, songs of yearning, frustration and joy – the bread and butter of rock music.
The music to Spring Awakening was written by songwriter in his own right Duncan Sheik (Sater and Sheik, both Soka Gakkai Buddhists, met in 1999 not to write together but to chant together). Anyone reading marketing hype or perusing the STC season programme might be led to expect roaring Jack White guitars or Rolling Stone riffs, but the truth is that Sheik’s music is more mild-mannered, a bit smoother round the edges than that. Judging the music on face value, Spring Awakening is much closer to the ersatz rock of Rent than it would probably like to think – a lot more happens in the band pit in Rent than in Spring Awakening – but, Sheik still has some great songs up his sleeve, and, for once, there’s so much more to this musical than the music.
Besides all the awards and critical recognition, what’s most significant is that Spring Awakening has attained what few shows could ever dream of: relevance for teenage audiences. If the reports are to be believed, they went to shows in droves, eager to see actors their age acting their age. It’s great to see the STC kicking off the year by appealing to the under 20s. This, really, is the awakening we need.
WHAT: Spring Awakening
WHERE & WHEN: Sydney Theatre Thursday 4 February to Sunday 28