Spring Awakening & Homo Love - Why The Big Joke? SPOILERS- Page 2

[brainpolice23]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:21pm

The most interesting thing that I found about Wedekind was that he had this huge identity crisis resulting from the fact that he was not naturalized anywhere for years. His dad moved from Germany to the US before meeting his mother, where they had their first child, then had Frank back in Germany on vacation...(naming him Benjamin Franklin as a sort of joke)...then moved on to Switzerland pissed off at the state Germany was in. His schoolmates called him Frank Wedekind aus San Francisco. Anywhom, the largest problem that I have faced when examining Spring Awakening is who Wedekind's character really is.

You can make the argument for Melchior:
-Liberal parents
-Leader among peers
-Idealist
-Understanding of sexuality at a young age
-Had close friends commit suicide after not getting promoted

Yet Wedekind illustrated enumerate times the strong contrasts between him and Gerhart Hauptmann the naturalistic playwright.

Wedekind:
-egoist
-night creature
-thinker
-clumsy
-Peer Gynt
-Franz Moor
-Mephisto
-pessimist
-theoretician
-self-conscious
-genuine but ugly
-gained by fighting

whereas Hauptman was:
-altruist
-day creature
-artist
-creative
-Brand
-Karl Moor
-Faust
-Optimist
-Selfless and compassionate
-Charming, but artificial and not genuine

(Frank Wedekind by Sol Gittleman- from Twayne's World Authors Series)

If you examine this you'll view that Moritz is more of a night creature, clumsy, pessimistic, self-conscious, genuine but ugly fellow...while Melchior fits more under the Hauptmann thread. This threw me for a bit of a loop, and further altered my perception of who might be the tragic hero of the story...or for that matter if there is a tragic hero considering it's a "kindertragedie."

My perspective is that Melchior is extremely manipulative and egotistical, thinking that he in essence knows what's right and chooses to shape the minds of two very impressionable people (Wendla and Moritz). He knows of animal like sexual impulses that people face, and knows of Moritz' vulnerability. Melchior does not LOVE Wendla, as he does not believe that love really exists. By taking the rape scene out of the MUSICAL, Melchior is painted as this huge protagonist, who has done nothing wrong, and making the play more about sexual experimentation...which I think Sater, Mayer and company did so that the only antagonists in the story would remain as the adults.

However, the major downfall of the musical adaptation is the ending. In the play, Moritz pushes Melchior to kill himself as well, and show the world in that sense...almost hinting that he believed suicide to be part of Melchi's belief system...but the masked man intervenes pushing Melchior away from suicide. In the musical, they do the Les Mis thing and Moritz and Wendla push Melchior to move on and change the world...yada yada yada. Making the ending a little confusing, especially when Ilse appears to sing the Song of Purple Summer.

As I saw the Musical, I immediately thought of the connections of this whole internal monologue through contemporary music as a modern Brechtian technique. When in fact, what's interesting is that Brecht's major influence was Wedekind. This quote made me think just how perfect a concept this adaptation was, and how in it's structure it stays completely true to Wedekind.

The obituary Brecht wrote just after Wedekind's death in 1918:
"A few weeks ago at the Bonbonniere he sang his songs to guitar accompaniment in a brittle voice, slightly monotonous and quite untrained. No singer ever gave me such a shock, such a thrill. It was the man's intense aliveness, the energy which allowed him to defy sn*ing ridicule and proclaim his brazen hymn to humanity, that also gave him this personal magic." Wedekind is rock music.

The last little rant I must go on is discussing the similarity between Ilse and Lulu. Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist (1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (1903). Actually no rant there...pretty self explanatory but nonetheless interesting.

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:24pm

^Great analysis but I just can't believe you went that deep into detail.

[brainpolice23]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:28pm

I can't help it, I'm reading this Wedekind biography, and read a couple translations of Spring Awakening recently. I won two tickets to the show and meet and greet on Sunday...and don't want to just be like "I loved you in the show," and like "You sing good." I want to get some real feedback, without being insulting.

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 2/2/07 at 11:31pm

^I've read the play as well but never given an analysis as some others have.

"I won two tickets to the show and meet and greet on Sunday...and don't want to just be like "I loved you in the show," and like "You sing good." I want to get some real feedback, without being insulting."

It's cool that you won!
Updated On: 2/2/07 at 11:31 PM