Dramatic riff on insecurities of youth
A ROCK musical adaptation of a controversial 1891 German play, Spring Awakening, opens at Cork’s Everyman Palace Theatre on October 19.
The work was produced by Granary Productions and performed at UCC’s Granary Theatre in March. With the same cast and crew, director Tony McCleane-Fay says transferring the musical to the stage of the Everyman Palace allows him to create more spectacle with a greater emphasis on the music.
The play was written by Frank Wedekind and premiered in Berlin in 1906. Set against the backdrop of repressive fin de siècle Germany, it tells the harrowing story of teenage self-discovery and burgeoning sexuality, and broaches abuse, rape, homosexuality, abortion and suicide. If that seems a depressing catalogue of social issues, the musical has a deceptively light touch and ends on a hopeful note, despite the tragedies. Because of its controversial content, the play was banned in Germany and elsewhere. It lay dormant for years and was produced sporadically around Europe in various translations. It wasn’t produced in England until 1972.
The show features music by Duncan Sheik. A surprise hit on Broadway, it won eight Tony awards in 2007. It also won four Drama Desk awards and its London production won four Olivier awards. It has become a music theatre phenomenon throughout the world, attracting a cult following wherever it is performed.
McCleane-Fay doesn’t direct musicals but was drawn to the songs and the compelling storylines in Spring Awakening. “I generally don’t like musicals but I really think this one has something to say. It’s really brave writing,” he says. The themes of the show could have emerged from the ‘bad old’ days in Ireland, with fire and brimstone preached from the altar and sex considered taboo.
“You could definitely draw parallels with Ireland. It’s still a relevant show. We’re trying to be subtle about the issues raised in it because they’re so heavy. There are a lot of serious issues in it but the show is so well-written that it isn’t a polemic against the adult world or anything like that.
“Sex abuse is alluded to in song and the depiction of suicide is handled delicately. The scene where one of the characters kills himself is very poignant and had the audience in tears every night at the Granary,” McCleane-Fay says.
The musical stars Aoife Moore as Wendla, who is ignorant of the facts of life and becomes pregnant by the ‘radical’ Melchoir, played by Michael O’Toole.
Moritz, played by Michael Williams, is an insecure teenager who finds puberty difficult and is in trouble at school through no fault of his own. He also has problems with his father. Casting the musical was problematic “because the actors have to have incredible singing voices. Shane Ffrench (a CIT School of Music student), has written a lot of new harmonies for the show. In this production, the music is much more to the fore than it was in the Granary. There will be a rock band on stage, the same band that was in the Granary. The first time round, we didn’t quite get that whole rock concept across. Now, we’re able to do that on the bigger stage. On stage, everything is made big. As Shakespeare said, ‘we’re holding a mirror up to nature.’ We do that by embellishing the material. Nobody wants to go and see something they could easily see on the street,” McCleane-Fay says.
The musical is moralistic. “It’s a bit like young people are good and older people are bad. But really, what it’s about is the importance of young people exploring when they wake up to various things in their lives, such as sexuality. They have to be allowed to go with it and explore it. In the play, the older people won’t allow them to do that,” he says. Adult hypocrisy is a glaring theme.
Spring Awakening contains an unexpected flagellation scene, with Melchoir lashing Wendla across her back, at her request, and going too far. McCleane-Fay says this is a pointer to the repressed feelings Wendla experiences. “It’s quite shocking. Wendla doesn’t feel anything emotionally. When she hears about a friend being abused by her father, she wants to see what that is like, to experience the suffering.”
The musical will appeal “to two demographics. Young people like it and the kind of audience that normally goes to musical theatre will enjoy it,” McCleane-Fay says.
While there are “joys working on the Everyman Palace stage, I love the intimacy of the Granary,” he says.
McCleane-Fay directed a production of Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs at the Everyman Palace some years ago. His second outing on that stage promises to be a dramatic spectacle.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
