Emcee's Spring Awakening "review" — Page 4

http://www.jonathanbwright.com

I don't really think that the "pop" music used in this show is an example of the "dumbing down" of theater, etc.

In fact, I think it's actually something quite brilliant in the musical. It helps to parallel the story with it's appropriateness in any time period - this happens to teenagers everywhere, everyday. It is INCREDIBLY real. I think THAT is what makes it so haunting. The choice for the music to be pop, in my opinion, is bold, daring and breathtaking.

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Huh? Does that mean you agree? I haven't had my coffee yet, haha.

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Yeah, that's what I wasn't sure about, heh...

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TEH, it's really not.

I am a teenager. I am not insulted by that statement. What insults my intelligence is the fact that I am supposed to buy into your supposed "wit". We get it already. You know more, you're more versed in theatrical history, you have better taste in just about everything, but come on! If you refuse to contribute anything remotely productive to any discussion and instead favor complete negativity, then go away. What's the point?

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I think the themes presented ARE to a degree universal, but because it's set in a provincial town with so much repression going on, it's very saturated and... almost melodramatic in its representation, I think.

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EnchantedHunter, Michael Feingold is great. And he agrees with me, actually.

"Conceiving a musical version of Frank Wedekind's 1891 tragicomedy of teenage sexuality, Frühlingserwachen, seems such an impossible task that the ultimate failure of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's attempt, Spring Awakening, is no surprise. The heartening part is how close they've come to succeeding, in good measure through Michael Mayer's sharp-edged production. Many small things are wrong, several big matters are left unsolved, and the last 20 minutes are a chaotic mess, but the truth and incisiveness of Wedekind's play jump out at you even so, largely thanks to Mayer and his game young cast, with special praise for choreographer Bill T. Jones's skill at building numbers in which the whole stage picture, rather than the dancers' feet, does the moving. "

"Sheik and Sater's excellent idea is to make the pop-rock sound of our own time represent the inner voice of these overtaught, overly polite, hung-up children of a bygone world. While Wedekind's still-startling scenes jump at you, the kids literally jump out of the scenes when Sheik's driving rhythms start up."

Although he doesn't like the lyrics. Have you even seen Spring Awakening?

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"But it's exactly the kind of 'democratization' that has resulted in the dumbing-down of all the arts--familiar, easy, made accessible, dumb. And in the case of pop music, completely useless for musical theater."

I'm just curious to know your point: You don't want things to be dumbed down, but when it comes to more complex scores, for example any work by LaChiusa, you seem to passionately dislike it. I don't mean to say that that one composer speaks for all complexity in musicals, but just as an example. Do you not like a show that isn't "dumbed down" or just not like LaChiusa in general?

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I read a few posts in this thread, but didn't read all 4 pages. Interesting. I was thinking of buying tkts. for boyfriend's birthday. I may do this.

What are teens themselves saying about this piece? And are they flocking to it and creating a big hoopla over it here on the board? Have they had any feedback? Teens?

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"I'm just curious to know your point: You don't want things to be dumbed down, but when it comes to more complex scores, for example any work by LaChiusa, you seem to passionately dislike it. I don't mean to say that that one composer speaks for all complexity in musicals, but just as an example. Do you not like a show that isn't "dumbed down" or just not like LaChiusa in general?"

They are flip sides of the same coin: the empty pretension of LaChiusa's work is as repugnant to me as the vapidity of the dumbed-down work. Surely there is a happy middle ground between empty 'entertainment' and arid 'experiments' that please no one. But they have virtually disappeared from our musical stages.

Ronin---have I seen SPRING AWAKENING? Yes..and no...in more ways than one. That's the best answer I can give.


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