Awakening into Adulthood
Many theater buffs know the title Spring Awakening because of the smash Broadway musical that won the Tony Award last spring. But the musical was based on a play by the same name that debuted a full century before, and the Department of Theater Studies will present that original play for its spring main stage production.
Written by German playwright Frank Wedekind, and published at his own expense in 1891, Spring Awakening deals frankly and provocatively with the sexual awakening of a group of German adolescents. The play focuses on the budding sexual maturity of young people in a society the playwright thought to be too repressive.
Spring Awakening was not performed publicly until 1906 in Germany, and the play closed after its debut night in New York in 1917 amid charges of obscenity and public outrage. While the public’s taste over the years has opened up to allow for more controversial subject matter, the themes addressed in the play—teenage desire, pressure to measure up, suicide, abortion, and homosexuality—are no less relevant now than they were then.
“Spring Awakening is a funny, profane, theatrically playful work about young people in the painful process of ‘waking up,’” says Neal Bell, dramaturg for the production and resident playwright and professor of the practice of theater studies. “They are discovering who they are, and who they might become, in a world that seems hemmed in by the brutal hypocrisy of adults.
“It was considered shocking, when it was written because of the unflinching way it portrays the sexual confusions and experiments of its young characters. And it still has the power to shock—and thrill and exhilarate,” adds Bell.
Jeff Storer, professor of the practice of theater studies, is directing Spring Awakening and finds one particular theme of the play especially poignant for today’s youth. In addition to sexuality, one of the storylines is about the pressure to “make the grade” and he knows this is something Duke students can relate to.
One of the play’s main characters, fourteen-year-old Moritz, says early in the play, “School makes me wish I was a cart horse! What do we go to school for? We go to school to be examined! And why are we examined? So we can fail. Seven have got to fail simply because the next class room is only big enough for sixty.”
Apparently the play did resonate with students, because they played the deciding role in selecting the play for production. “We had an open process for choosing the play,” says Storer. “We called for script suggestions last spring and after students submitted ideas, read and discussed the contenders, we whittled the titles down to a dozen and then five and then our final choice.”
Students considered not only the story, but the frequency of like productions in the recent past, the number of students who would be able to get involved and the mix of gender roles.
“I was very excited about the selection and able to get behind their choice, and I am happy it went through such a vetting process,” says Storer. “It allows for more ownership when students play a role in choosing, and we had a great turnout for auditions as a result of the early involvement.”
“I’m delighted that the Duke Theater Department is mounting a production of the original Spring Awakening,” says Bell, “so Triangle audiences can encounter this fascinating, challenging—and ultimately hopeful—play.”
Spring Awakening
Directed by Jeff Storer, Theater Studies faculty
Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center
April 3-5, 10-12, 8 pm & April 6 and 13 at 2 pm
$10 general admission; $5 students and senior citizens
www.tickets.duke.edu, 919-684-4444
