Theater Review—

Powerful, Touching ‘Spring Awakening’ In Ridgefield

By Julie Stern

RIDGEFIELD — Frank (Benjamin Franklin) Wedekind was a German playwright in the tradition of Henrik Ibsen, who attacked the hypocrisy of middle class morality. A generation younger than Ibsen, Wedekind was far more sexually explicit in his portrayal of  the puritanical pretensions of the adults — parents, teachers and clergy — and the destructive impact these had on young adolescents. His first play, Spring Awakening, was written in the 1890s, but could not be staged until 1906 because of outraged public sensibilities.  In this country as well, the translated version was rarely presented, and was quickly closed down by indignant civic authorities.

One hundred years later, Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater conceived the idea of turning it into a rock musical, eventually getting the show to Broadway in 2006, where it promptly garnered eight Tony Awards, four Drama Desk Prizes, and a Grammy for the band. Now you can see it in a rousing, spirited production directed by Alicia Dempster at Ridgefield Theater Barn.

If you go online to Amazon, for six bucks you can get a used copy of Lois Pemberton’s The Stork Didn’t Bring You, a 1948 book designed to explain the facts of life to teenagers. Sadly this work was not available in the 1890s, in the provincial German town where Spring Awakening is set. Like the original play, the musical focuses on the lives of three appealing kids — Melchior, his best friend Moritz, and the young girl Wendla — along with a dozen or so of their friends and classmates.

They are all in the throes of puberty, an unmentionable topic in their society, and one which they do not understand, and about which they can learn nothing. When Wendla, whose older sister is once again pregnant, asks her mother how babies are made, she gets no straight answers.

Moritz, who is tormented and distracted by sexual stirrings and impulses he cannot understand, is unable to concentrate in school, and is in serious danger of failing his exams — a disgrace so terrible that he plans to commit suicide if it happens.

Melchior, the brightest and psychologically healthiest one in the class is a philosophically minded free thinker, who ignores the cant foisted on them by their teachers. He alone among his friends has a knowledge of sexuality and reproduction, and writes an essay about it, which he shares with Moritz, to assure him that he need not feel guilty or ashamed because of his private thoughts.

When the teachers find the essay, Melchior is expelled. He doesn’t care; it frees him from the stupid pressures of a school where learning is based on rote memorization, and allows him time to wander in the mountains and think.

But the consequences for all three are dire. Melchior and Wendla make love in a hayloft during a storm. She gets pregnant without understanding what that means. Her mother sends her to an abortionist, where she dies. Moritz flunks out of school, and keeps the promise he made to himself if that were to happen… and Melchior is sent to the reformatory as punishment for his sinfulness. He alone stands a chance of survival, but it won’t be in the society that raised him.

Ridgefield has a great young cast for this show, highlighted by Keiji Ishiguri as Melchior, winsome and appealing, with a purity about him that makes him an ideal hero. In contrast, distinguished by a goofy hairdo, Chris Cenatiempo is blundering and confused as the hapless Moritz, while Carly Phypers is dreamy and sensitive as Wendla.

Bennett and Mary Shuldman do wonders as they take on the roles of every adult who appears in the lives of the children. It hardly matters that they look interchangeable as they morph from  teachers to parents to civic personages. All authorities look alike to the kids, and are both unhelpful and inscrutable. The onstage seven-piece band is vigorous and loud, as a rock band should be, without drowning out the singing of the cast as they belt out twenty musical numbers.

This is a powerful show which will probably get censored in many places today, touching as it does on such forbidden issues as masturbation, homosexuality,  rape,  parental sexual abuse,  abortion, and bad education. As any middle school teacher knows,  kids are familiar with all of this, but many adults still like to pretend.

(Performances continue weekends until October 6. As mentioned above, this show is intended for mature audiences. It contains strong sexual content, brief nudity, coarse language and adult themes.

See the Enjoy Calendar, in print and online, for curtain, ticket and other details.)