A century before Spring Awakening The Musical took Broadway by storm (and won eight Tony awards in the bargain), German playwright Frank Wedekind shocked and outraged audiences on both sides of the Atlantic with Frühlings Erwachen, whose 2007 Jonathan Franzen translation proves a sensational UCLA Department Of Theater showcase for its director, designers, and cast.

 Far ahead of its time in its explicit depictions of sex (both hetero and homo) between 14-year-olds only just awakening to the springtime of their pubescence (not to mention scenes of masturbation and rape), Wedekind’s play stands up astonishingly well for something written way back in 1891 (though not staged in Germany till 1906 or on Broadway till 1917.)

Musical theater fans will recognize the characters, storylines, and many of the scenes that inspired its Duncan Sheik-Stephen Sater adaptation.

 Among the teenagers engaging in adolescent horseplay, forest frolicking, philosophizing, and wondering about (and engaging in) sex are the early-developing (and woefully naive) Wendla (Shelby Barry), whose lack of sex education could well prove disastrous;

 Melchior (Kelsey Kato), whose prom king looks hide a dismaying capacity for physical and sexual violence; Melchior’s best friend Moritz (Calvin Brady), gradually becoming unhinged by puberty, bad grades, and depression; fellow classmates Hansy (Hunter Saling), prone to masturbatory fantasies, and Ernst (Carl Ballantine), doing some Hansy fantasizing of his own; Martha (Maddie Faircloth), whose nightly parental beatings stir provoke horror from Thea (Khana Tillman) and envy from Wendla; and Ilse (Jamie Hughes) whose escape from a sexually abusive home has her hiding out among bohemian forest-dwelling deviants.

Director Evelina Stampa and her accomplished young cast take these characters, and two dozen more, and bring them to haunting, unforgettable life.

Admittedly, not everything works in the Wedekind original despite a first-rate translation that takes stilted lines like “The devil take me, were it not for Papa, I’d take my bundle” and unstilts them (“I swear to God, if it weren’t for my dad, I’d pack a bag tonight”) for contemporary ears.

 Soliloquies (and there are a bunch of them) go on about twice as long as they should, a scene that has teachers arguing about which window to open (or whether to leave all of them shut) provides superfluous comic relief, and the play’s climatic sequence involving a character known only as Masked Man is straight out of la-la land.

Still, these are minor quibbles in a play that still packs one powerful punch.

Stampa’s directorial vision is a stunning one from a show-opening montage of teens whose body urges give new meaning to Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself” and who will return frequently to serve as silent witnesses.

In addition, with scenic-lighting designer Jeff Behm providing a breathtaking backdrop often lit through haze to striking effect and sound designer Jacob Menke underscoring the action with intentionally unsettling music, percussion, and whispered voices, this Spring Awakening dazzles both eyes and ears.

Kato is a revelation as Melchior, whose capacity for violence is not without redemption; Brady’s heartbreaking turn as Mortiz once again proves him one to watch; and Barry does powerful work as a deeply conflicted Wendla.

Everyone else in the cast plays both teens and adults, something that works surprisingly well, perhaps because not that long ago these grown-ups were teenagers themselves.

 Hughes, Faircloth, and Tillman ace the challenges of playing both mothers and daughters, and Ballantine, Ben Ellerbrock, Saúl Gutierrez, Zach Kumaishi, Sam Linkowski, and Saling do the same as assorted schoolboys and their elders, with Saling scoring bonus points for a monolog to end all monologs and an engagingly played bit of boy-on-boy action with Ballantine, and Kumaishi is an eleventh-hour standout as a baby-faced “Masked” Man. A fine John Dellaporta completes the cast as heartless Headmaster Heart and a folksy Dr. Seltzer.

Additional kudos are due Stampa for her edgy choreography, Alexa Weinzieri for her pitch-perfect period costumes, and Kumaishi for some believable fight choreography.

 Brittni Alicia Finley is stage manager. Mira Saccoccio Winick is assistant director and assistant stage manager, Cynthia Ayala is assistant scenic designer, Courtney Ohnstad is assistant costume designer, Richard Fong is assistant lighting designer, and Marisa Melideo is hair artist.

Both a fascinating look at where Spring Awakening The Musical came from and an eye-opening glimpse at how much today’s teens have in common with their 19th-century counterparts, Spring Awakening The Play is not just UCLA TFT Department Of Theater at its best, it’s theater at its finest, no need for qualifying adjectives.

UCLA Macgowan Hall Little Theater, 245 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles.
www.tft.ucla.edu

–Steven Stanley
May 23, 2018
Photos: Jeff Behm

Tags: Frank Wedekind, Los Angeles Theater Review, UCLA