the Best Thing(s) about Spring Awakening

[brainpolice23]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 6:09pm

I'm gonna go with the music, the lights, and Rob Devaney...since I think that no one has ever mentioned this guy.

This post has no sexual undertones...you sick people.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 6:10pm

yeah, cause the show has nothing to do with sex.
i'm gonna say that little Gerard guy.
Updated On: 2/26/07 at 06:10 PM

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 6:17pm

My favorite thing about Spring Awakening is the millions of threads on this site...

This one is my favorite, of course.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 6:22pm

The music, the book, the cast, and the Lea Michele's boob

[Taryn]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 8:53pm

Stephen Spinella's performance during "Left Behind."

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:07pm

... can't this sort of stuff fit in the "Spring Awakening love" thread?

Learn from us Pascal fangirls to keep it in one thread.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:09pm

I love....

oh, wait.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:12pm

The score, the orchestrations, John Gallagher Jr.'s performance, the lighting.

[brainpolice23]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:12pm

"Stephen Spinella's performance during 'Left Behind.'"

I'm gonna have to disagree.

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:15pm

Yankee everyone knows you don't like show.Give it a damn rest already. Matt, that was immature.

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:24pm

Maybe he would "give it a damn rest" if people actually used the search function rather than flood the board with unnecessary Spring Awakening-related threads. Hell, no one even needs to use the search function when there are plenty of threads from the first and second pages of this board from which to pick when posting about Spring Awakening. I'm not condoing his little Spring Awakening "Not Love"/Hate/Whatever thread, but it's a little irritating to constantly see new threads popping up about the most banal things related to this show.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:30pm

Thank you.

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:34pm

I was just a little tired with Yankee keep saying he didn't like the show because everyone already know he does not like it. Siamese, I do agree with you though. I am a fan of this show and am getting slightly annoyed with these constant threads. To people who keep posting a bunch of Spring Awakening related threads I can appoint you a message board instead of having all these threads. I like this board because it is about Broadway in general not about one show.
Updated On: 2/26/07 at 09:34 PM

[defyingravity11]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 9:46pm

John Gallagher!

[brainpolice23]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 10:25pm

siamese dream, if you don't remember...i was a vital part of your thread about reasons you dislike spring awakening and posted this massive response.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"the central element of the play is this idea of what we know, what we don't know and what we choose to act on versus what we choose to withhold. melchior is not a hero. he is a flawed character. there are no heroes in SA. only humans with human failings. they make mistakes, they suffer, they bruise."

when i asked at that talk-back, "do you feel as if there is a tragic hero in this play" i was looking for a response similar to this. stagegrrl (maybe Frances?) is right that Wedekind's original has flaws as well, and suffers from the same hopping around from one point to the next that the musical does. However, in some instincts the adaptation falls a little short. Mainly, it struggles in how it addresses Wedekind's feelings about the existence of "Love," the attempt to make Melchior seem to be this protagonist "All-American" (or All-German) character, and trying to sum everything up in the end with a happy "look towards the future" ballad, that is not fitting as many critics have pointed out.

THIS IS DIRECTLY FROM SOL GITTLEMAN'S BIOGRAPHY OF WEDEKIND, AND ILLUSTRATES ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON WEDEKIND'S CHARACTERIZATIONS AND MOTIVES
"The high school student Melchior Gabor is intellectually more advanced than his fourteen-year-old classmates, and the awakening of latent sexuality instinctively tells him that there is more to life than he has assumed. He is also fortunate in that his mother, an unusually liberal and understanding parent, has not engendered any feelings of guilt and shame; and Melchior is able to acquire a type of sexual education to prepare him for puberty. Partly through reading, but mostly through the observation of animals, he has gained a practical knowledge of sex and is convinced that if man were left untainted by civilization, he would follow the same primitive instincts which dominate the animal world on t he lower orders. Love, marriage, and the other "conventions," he concludes, are not really a part of the elemental laws of nature...(it goes on to illustrate how these animal instincts take hold of Melchior causing him to rape Wendla, which is absent in the musical)
...
[Wedekind] was in no way interested in depicting a world normally motivated by the tragic events of a youth-adult conflict. The characterizations are strictly partial and un-selfconsciously partisan; there are no flawed individuals who might have evoked a sense of pity, even in their villainy. The enemy is the adult world, populated by brutes; and Wedekind's inspired repugnance explodes throughout the play."

Siamese, your argument is flawed in your stating that you wish certain changes were made to the plot line, regardless of their relevancy to Wedekind's concept. The point is, although this interpretation has altered much of what Wedekind wrote, it is still the same basic story, and changing characters to a great extent would create an entirely different production...something that they did not set out to do.

Once again from before:
Siamese, I believe you have a lot of valid points, however, personally I still found the show enjoyable.

Many characters were definitely underdeveloped, not necessarily stemming from Wedekind's original.

Melchior: Wedekind was incredibly interested in illustrating that "love" did not exist, that there was only lust, pushed forward by the animal-like sexual desires of both the male and female. Melchior reads a great deal, given a great deal of leeway because of liberal parents (Wedekind was the same way), however in the original play, Melchior's animal instinct overcomes him and causes him to beat Wendla, and then rape her. The main flaw in Melchior's character, in the original, is that although he reads a great deal, and seems to have a basic understanding of human character, he is nonetheless subject to certain things merely because of his age.

In the musical, I believe Mayer and Sater tried to hard to make Melchior this great protagonist being, who is smart, attractive, and caring. As a result, the plays actions become less cohesive, and Melchior becomes a character that is very hard to relate to.

Wedekind made Moritz and Melchior a combination of himself, and his "arch-enemy" the naturalistic playwright Gerhart Hauptmann. However, it is doubtful that any of Wedekind's lengthy character descriptions, and contrasts between himself and Hauptmann were researched during development.

Moritz: John Gallagher puts on a fantastic show. His stage presence is undeniable, his delivery frantic, and his voice reminiscent of Wedekind from the eyes of Brecht, "[Wedekind] sang his songs to guitar accompinament in a brittle voice, slightly monotonous and quite untrained. No singer 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."

Gallagher illustrates the beauty of this rock-musical concept...however almost all of the others fall short. If you read a couple of Wedekind biographies, it is easy to see that Wedekind was just as much a "rock-star" as Duncan Sheik, which is why I think this idea works. However, the lyrical execution, and lack of strong character development, both on the part of the writing team and actors, causes the product to fall a bit flat. No doubt though, Johnny Gallagher is a thrill to watch. Yet, due to the placement of him in the "Those You've Known" scene, his character is slightly weakened. In the original play, Moritz attempts to coerce Melchior into joining him in the grave, almost feeling as if it is part of his master plan...show them all through suicide, and manipulate these naive kids (Moritz and Wendla) into having the same understandings that you do. By having Moritz and Wendla come out of the stage, in some hokie Les Mis type action, simply indicates that "hey, it's about time that we wrap up this show," with "Purple Summer" being the "HEY WE STILL WANT A STANDING OVATION, AND MOST PEOPLE WON'T CLAP LOUDLY IF THEY'RE VERY UPSET" number.

comparison of Wedekind to Hauptman:
Wedekind:
EGOIST
NIGHT CREATURE
THINKER
CLUMSY
PEER GYNT
FRANZ MOOR
MEPHISTO
PESSIMIST
THEORETICIAN
GAINS BY FIGHTING
SELF-CONSCIOUS
GENUINE, BUT UGLY

HAUPTMANN:
ALTRUIST
DAY CREATURE
ARTIST
CREATIVE
BRAND
KARL MOOR
FAUST
OPTIMIST
ORIGINAL THINKER
ETHICAL, MAKES A GRAND CAREER OUT OF PLAYING THE "GRAND SEIGNEUR"
SELFLESS, PREACHES UNIVERSAL LOVE, COMPASSION, UNDERSTANDING
CHARMING, BUT NOT GENUINE, ARTIFICIALITY DISFIGURES EVERYTHING, JOY IN THE BEAUTY OF THE EMPTY WORD

anywhom, on to the next character.

Ilse: Being a douchebag, I asked Lauren Pritchard at this Spring-Awakening talk back "Have you drawn any parallels to the character of Lulu, from Wedekind's Erdgeist and Pandora's Box, with your character?" She replied "No, but maybe I should look into it." The sad thing is, that Ilse is Wedekind's model of this unrestrained, sexual, free, nomadic, female, that he uses over and over in his stories to illustrate that females have just as much sexual desire as males. Although Ilse's presence in Spring Awakening is not as grand as the presence of Lulu in the two plays, or even Klara the central character in "Musik," (oddly advised by a character named Else). You can argue that Ilse is slightly underdeveloped, and not really enthralling because most of her time is spent singing "like a rock-star in their bedroom," but the fact is that there are so many resources out there that time on stage should not hinder your ability to develop a strong character. Think of your first theatre teacher that said "Even the Onion in the vegetable patch can impact the audience to a great degree."

Wendla: Wedekind wrote her as this naive girl, who doubted that anyone cared for her, even her parents. She longed for love, while Melchior had the understanding that "there is no such thing as love," making Wendla the perfect target for illustrating his ideology. She asks him to beat her, thinking that may indicate love, and then of course Melchior's lustful desires control him, and push him to rape Wendla. Wedekind plays on the idea of LOVE throughout the play, however he, like Melchior, did not believe such a thing existed. This may be in turn why the Hanschen/Ernst scene is so comical, because of the same interplay between one who is just motivated by lust, and the other who feels as if love truly exists.

Martha: In reality, she should be a really ****ed up character. Yet she is so composed in the musical, that you doubt anything is really wrong with her. You can make the argument that "she is trying to hide her feelings," but still she would show signs of being overly restrained. "Dark I Know Well" is a fantastic song though.

Thea: I guess she looks like she's 12.

Hanschen: Johnny B. Wright clearly put a great deal of thought into this character, and his effort pays off a great deal. However, I was a little confused with his vocal delivery during ensemble numbers. This, I assume, indicates the discontinuity between the script and music that Siamese speaks of as Hanschen has a few different vocal styles, mainly the "Bitch of Living," "Word of Your Body (Reprise)" style, and the "Totally F*CKed," "My Junk" style. This is not really on the actor, as it is evident that some songs act as "internal monologues" while others ...eh, don't really do it.

Otto, Georg, and Ernst: These actors are fantastic, and they do an amazing job with the material. However, I wish that there was a greater amount of material that they both could work with in the show, especially Otto. I feel as if, Sater and Mayer drew the line somewhere and said "the more we play out these various vignettes about abuse, homosexuality, gypsy-love, and masturbation, the further away we may push the audience." So, Otto's story is sort of set aside.



To sort of bring this mess together, I enjoyed "Spring Awakening" thoroughly...though I doubt anyone really cares. The problems in the show seem to lie in poor lyricism, rough restructuring from Wedekind's original, underdeveloped characters, and the lack of cohesiveness between the main plot and the sub-plots, as well as the music and script at points. That's all for now.

Peace.

edited to add: Steven Spinella is weak, and overdoes almost every male character. The worst comes in the hands of Moritz's father, weeping uncontrollably over his grave...instead of the scorn, and disdain shown for his dead son in the original "this boy was no son of mine." Personally, I think it would have worked better.

+

Siamese, I definitely see the Thom Yorke reference. Duncan Sheik during rehearsals told the actors to "sing like thom yorke" and a bunch of others...Gallagher has said he was influenced vocally by Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day. However, I felt at times they should have been played Talking Heads instead of Radiohead...b/c David Byrne can easily be seen as an influence in some of the music.

The true brilliance of this reinterpretation of SPRING AWAKENING, lies in its bridging of Brecht and Wedekind.

I dare you to read the entire post.

Posted: 2/26/07 at 10:29pm

I don't care if you posted in my thread, and I have absolutely no idea why you copied your old post onto this thread as well. My point is that there is no need for THIS thread.

[Craww]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 10:41pm

brainpolice23, has anyone ever explained the concept of tl;dr to you?

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 10:43pm

What?

Posted: 2/26/07 at 10:44pm

Yeah. That was kind of my response upon seeing that post initially as well. I'm sure there is some great insight wrapped up in there, but I'm kind of just discovering that you disagree with me now.

BSo: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tl%3Bdr Updated On: 2/26/07 at 10:44 PM

[sfs1414]

Posted: 2/26/07 at 11:27pm

siamese dream. You are pissed because people keep making SA threads. Yet you keep responding to the threads. If you don't want anymore of them. Then don't read or respond to them.

Music and Lighting.

[FutureAladdinOnB'Way]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:01am

Thank GOD TLoZ is in the Urban Dictionary...HAHA

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:04am

issotgdud

I'm so sick of the goddamn urban dictionary!

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:09am

siamese dream. You are pissed because people keep making SA threads. Yet you keep responding to the threads. If you don't want anymore of them. Then don't read or respond to them.

I generally don't read or respond to them. I've participated in a grand total of one Spring Awakening thread, and that was my own thread reviewing the show. I happened to look at this one and noticed that it really could have fit into the pre-existing and oft-used "Spring Awakening love" thread. It's kind of hard to ignore the unnecessary overabundance of Spring Awakening-related threads on the main board after a while, hard as I try.

[FutureAladdinOnB'Way]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:11am

"issotgdud

I'm so sick of the goddamn urban dictionary! "
I can't stand it either...I just love that TLoZ is in it! Come on it's a Billion dollar franchise

[lady godiva]

Posted: 2/27/07 at 12:30am

Remy Zaken's voice.