If you’ve already bought your tickets for award-winning musical Spring Awakening, by now you should have received the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center’s advisory mailing. We’re warned that this show contains profanity and nudity. A quick glance over the musical number listing and you’ll notice that with such numbers as “The Bitch of Living” and “Totally Fucked,” it’s not a good one for the toddlers. And apparently not for the grandparents either; at Tuesday night’s opening a few gasps escaped from the elderly couple seated next to me during an onstage boy-on-boy make out session. The folk-infused rock musical’s exploration of teenage sexuality almost seems mundane alongside the bondage, child rape, abortion, masturbation, and suicide that occurs.
The work covers every possible angle of teen angst and tumult. Much of the angst stays true to Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play of the same name, a work that was equally as controversial in its own time. Banned from the stage, it would be another hundred years before it was again performed in English.
Set “in a provincial German town in the 1890s,” Spring Awakening spends a semester’s worth of time analyzing the lives of young teens. These pupils, headed by hero and heroine Melchior Gabor and Wendla Bergmann, are in the throes of puberty. Sexually oppressed and generally uninformed, the teens are driven mad by what they don’t know. Diagrams of the labia majora circulate among the boys, and the girls believe babies come from marriage.
Duncan Sheik, of “Barely Breathing” fame, wrote the brilliant music. His work won two Tonys, for Best Original Score and Best Orchestration. Refreshingly, the tour’s musicians actually looked excited to be playing this show; the power of much of the musical writing is undeniable. A veritable rock musical, some numbers are heavy-hitting (“Totally Fucked”), while at other times the four-piece string section creates a lush backdrop for more introspective moments. Steven Sater’s lyrics thoughtfully convey all of the sexual questions and feelings these kids shuffle through.
The standout comes in Moritz (played by Taylor Trensch), a young man so troubled by puberty he can hardly control his thoughts. He sports a five-inch mohawk, perfect for his lashing out in “Bitch of Living.” He is tormented by peers, parents and professors. He and fellow outcast Ilse (Steffi D) possess the best vocal chops of this touring bunch. Lea Michelle (Glee) originated the role of Wendla on Broadway; the tour’s Christy Altomare does a pleasant if occasionally timid rendition.
In a poignant move by director Michael Mayer, all of the primary adult characters are played by the same two actors. The actors go from parent to teacher with the addition of a hat or the removal of a cane. This slight change speaks to the unfeeling coldness that surrounds these teenagers. In the sexually segregated school system, no one tells them where babies come from, or how to handle “that itch you can’t control” (“Bitch of Living”). Parents are terse and aloof about sexual matters, and offer no “way to handle things” (“Mama Who Bore Me”). With some sex education and a few understanding adults, these teens would be better equipped to handle the tumult of adolescence.
Spring Awakening is at the Belk Theater through February 7.