Spring Awakening: Differences between Show and Musical- Page 2

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 9/19/08 at 10:23pm

Bump...

Finally stumbled upon the Hughes trans. and it's the mother-load. It almost streamlines the whole thing. Definitely better than Franzen's and Bentley's.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 9/21/08 at 2:13am

And it's actually easy to understand. Finally a comprehensible translation. It's really a shame that it's no longer in print.

~Steven

[geekgirl06]

Posted: 9/21/08 at 2:45am

Well... this could just be direction... but to me a big difference is that in the play, what happens between Melchior and Wendla is clearly rape, but in the musical, it's much more intimate and not as black and white, and if you ask me, it's mutual (Wendla clearly tells him to go on). And the musical point of view definitely hits closer to home in showing the perils of the ill informed, because no matter what parents tell their children, children are still going to do what feels right, whether or not they understand the consequences.

[antonijan]

Posted: 9/27/08 at 4:40am

I hope our local theaters can do the play...

The musical kept me wanting more.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 9/27/08 at 8:49am

The ending is definitely one big change...the other is the sex scene. The play it is rape, in the musical it is not. Knowledgable of sex or not....Wendla does consent.

For some people they will argue whether the current production is rape or not....but the cast as well as the director and Sater have directly said it is not.

I read the play version before I saw the musical. I was moved by both in different ways.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 9/27/08 at 1:57pm

I had seen two very fine productions of the play before the musical version was announced. I am not convinced that the music adds anything significant to the drama, but the musical is a valiant (and mostly successful) adaptation.

The play, however, was riveting. Much is made of the sex scene in the musical. In the play there were several including one solo and one group masturbation scene. (In the latter the boys were on stage wearing white briefs with tiny flashlights inside. They moved the lights to simulate the act and as each one finished they turned off the light. It was brilliant but the audience was dead silent in that sequence...almost like no one was breathing!)

My most vivid memory was of the final scene where the actor playing Moritz was flown in on a "cloud" appearing headless with his head under his arm. (The actor playing Moritz put his own head through the arm of either a dummy or a second actor costumed to look headless.) It was a startling image to say the least.