ARTS REVIEW: 'SPRING AWAKENING' AT THE PANTAGES THEATER

I've Seen a Lot of Musicals In My Day, But It's Truly Something to See a Good One...

By: Josh Moorhead

February 8, 2011

(Tuesday, February 8, 2011 in Hollywood, California) You go to college for a few years and you forget that some people consume alcohol in moderation and for taste. It's all anonymous kegs and two-buck Chuck, and it all tastes the same. Then someone gives you your first bottle of the good stuff, or you have one of those 12-dollar beers from somewhere weird at the restaurant that does that kind of thing and your face blows up. Your palate has been cleansed, like a steakhouse after a life of McBurgers, like watching opening day at Dodgers Stadium after a Tee-ball game, like a whole stack of silly metaphors for one that actually gets the job done.

If the good folks at Broadway LA would allow me those comparisons, seeing Spring Awakening was much the same. I'm not exactly a musical connoisseur; previous to Tuesday night, my feeble brain thought you entered the theater for spectacle--changing sets, people on wires maybe, shiny things with lots of sparks flying out of them. There were no sparks, no wires in Spring Awakening, and the amount of staging would only win in a prop-off against Our Town. But my props are off to this show. Gene Shalit just rolled over in his grave. Wait, he's still alive?

Yoinks. Anyway, I've seen quite a few musicals in my day, but it's truly something to see a good one and go "ooooohhh." Improbably, Spring Awakening is based on a controversial 1891 play by Frank Wedekind and is set in Germany at the same time. It concerns a bunch of uniform-clad German school kids with names reminiscent of Mike Myers’s SNL “Sprocket” sketches, discovering their sexuality. And by “discover,” I mean quite literally discover--they don't know what sex is at all, and I don't think the word is muttered once throughout all the proceedings, even if it's portrayed. The musical depicts the turmoil of mounted frustration and unfortunately realized abuse against the innocence of discovery in the light of love, all under the blanket of hush-hush shame and ignorance. It raises a lot of interesting questions about guilt and growing, and realizing ourselves against ignorance or suppression. My goodness love is a strong thing, and who's to deny it? And if God is love--one of the shortest of all verses from the Bible that many villainous old curmudgeons from entertainments the world over misappropriate--why couldn't he be consulted, celebrated, or realized in matters of it? Who am I to say? I won't say I'm much more awakened than an 1890s German schoolboy, but Spring Awakening concerns itself with the things that make our reality, our humanity more heightened, and it does it in such a matter-of-fact, deft way that other musicals seem cheap in comparison.

Spring Awakening, in its simplicity and honesty, has the surprise enjoyment of being something that should never work but easily does, as opposed to something that you think totally would but simply doesn't (Spider-Man, I haven't seen you yet, but I'm lookin' at ya). There's nothing grandiose about the whole thing. There are no explosions, no arch characters, no gold-encrusted numbers. The show's show-stopper, in fact, is a song called "You're F*cked," which I doubt will be playing on any Broadway collections in the family mini-van anytime soon. Ah yes, the music. Again, seemingly improbably, Duncan Sheik gets the credit for the music here (along with Steven Sater on lyrics). You remember Duncan Sheik. You don't? Remember that song "Barely Breathing"? Okay, now you remember Duncan Sheik. Contrary to the setting, there's not a monkish German drone in the songbook. It is, for the most part, rock-edged alternative with funny, or honest, or again unexpected lyrics. "The Bitch of Living" is another standout, which is about pretty much what it sounds like it is. Songs without curse words in the title are great too. "Mama Who Bore Me," the opener, really sets the tone with a girl wondering why her mom still tells her tall tales of storks. "Touch Me" is a bit of intimate, heart-pulling magic and, for my count, the love theme. "The Word of Your Body" is haunting, honest, "Oh, I'm gonna be wounded/Oh, I'm gonna be your wound, Oh, I'm gonna bruise you/Oh, you're gonna be my bruise," and can be interpreted to be resigned in the same way that "My Junk" proclaims "everyone's got their junk and my junk is you." These are people in the throws of it. But not all of it is on the downside either, even though most of our characters end up going through some rough, dramatic stuff. The show closes on "The Song of Purple Summer," so there you go.

Another reason it shouldn't work--besides the long ago setting, the German locale, and gobbledygook names--is that this is the only musical I can think of where, when people break out in song, they break the speech patterns and trappings of their settings and rip mics out from their jackets and sing like their Rock deity lives depended on it. This works fantastically because whenever characters do break into song, we're hearing their inner monologue, and their frustrations and hopes and dreams pour out in a very current way because, as the point of the whole matter goes, all these frustrations and hopes and dreams are still very current, whether we dress them up in 19th century knickers and name them Melchior Gabor or not. We're still human, after all. And we're still prone to long, love, suffer or succeed, succumb or overcome. Spring Awakening's strength is in the culmination of all its elements to translate all these ideas from such an obscure place in such a relatable way. I used to think I got bored at musicals after a while because my own attention span or because sometimes those seats just get darned uncomfortable. Or I was hungry. Or I got distracted by an Exit sign or someone selling Milk Duds. Or look! A fly! Turns out they probably just weren't good enough.

Truth be told, I saw Spring Awakening once back in the day on Broadway, the year it picked up the Tony for being the best of its kind. I was cool with it and everything, but this traveling cast really brought it--not so much the traveling circus, but the invading army. The applause after "Totally F*cked”--an act in the middle of the show, mind you--was among the longest and most sincere I've ever heard, to the point where the cast was struggling to hold their poses and not break into smiles. The people at Broadway LA and the Pantages Theater really don't make apologies for being on Hollywood Boulevard and not Broadway. The staging and lighting are not flashy, but detailed and impressive. The whole stage can disappear into a few bright lights to be made stars or be splashed in a single color to reflect a mood, drawing out select items from the set walls that are decorated like some eclectic bohemian’s apartment, not a German school house. The dancing scales the set walls, and kicks and flips like ninjas really, not lovey-dovey teens. And hey, that's cool. I never once thought about Milk Duds. You know why? Because this show is no dud. I've been writing for a while. Is Gene Shalit still alive? Do I have to cut him a royalty check or something?

Moving on...

The unfortunate truth is that the sis-boom-bah of opening night at the beautiful Pantages for a show as precise as Spring Awakening rolled out on a red carpet was a palate cleanser from the night before when I saw a long lost musical, A Touch of Venus, at Glendale's Alex Theater. (At this point, after all this musical talk, I'd like to note that I also like Football and Lil Wayne and Die Hard…oh, and long walks on the beach... Ladies?) Anyway, lacking the production budget and value of Broadway LA, the troupe at the Alex does their best in an interesting way. They restore the forgotten or reveal the unknown (the upcoming Batboy: The Musical based on The National Enquirer anyone?) in a matter of days. And I really mean that. In a 72-hour period, they gather the cast, a small orchestra, and rehearse and stage the whole thing once before opening night. You gotta tip your hat to them for this kind of effort, but while vowing to make a cake in 30 minutes from scratch might be a noble idea, a baked cake it does not make. The ultimately effective and interesting choice in Spring Awakening to have the cast run around with mics while they sing is contrasted with the Alex's "we had no other choice" determination to have their cast read their scripts from stage. And while Spring Awakening’s humble but specifically and meticulously designed set doesn't have any cannons or Spider-Men or chandeliers, Alex's is utterly naked. Unfortunately, while the effort in such a short time for such an obscure show is admirable, it's not enough to keep someone invested that gets distracted by... wait, don't I have Cocoa Pebbles at home?

The ultimate thing a critic's gotta do is just to admit when something's better. Congrats, Spring Awakening, you win--not just the Tony but the Josh. You made me feel funny things. Maybe I'm growing up.

Check out Spring Awakening at the Pantages, and follow BroadwayLA through the rest of their season. For something different, including a selection of out-of-the-ordinary plays, check out Alex's schedule.