Spring Awakening has arrived at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre in what is easily the most “high-concept” of the fourteen productions I’ve seen. Promoted as “Spring Awakening For Gun Safety” and drawing overt connections between its 1891 teen protagonists and the 2018 world we live in, this thoroughly original vision is as stunningly directed and choreographed as it is strikingly designed and powerfully performed.

 Not that Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s 2006 Broadway hit didn’t already blend past and present (and child abuse, S&M, incest, abortion, and suicide among 14-year-olds just now awakening to their sexuality) to breathtaking effect, keeping German playwright Frank Wedekind’s late-19th-century Frühlings Erwachen’s time and place intact while inserting songs running the gamut from hard to alternative rock, the Broadway original going to far as to have its 1891 characters pull hand mikes from their within their period outfits whenever possessed by the urge to sing emotions their spoken words dared not express.

Both the German original and its Broadway adaptation have the handsome, popular, self-confident Melchior (Andrew Gleckler), the all-too-innocent but sexually inquisitive Wendla (Asha Noel Iyer), and the introverted, inhibited, wet-dream-plagued Moritz (Thomas Adoue Polk) sharing the stage with classmates every bit as horny as they.

 The show begins quietly enough, but before long Wendla’s plaintive “Mama Who Bore Me” has taken on a girl-band rock beat echoed by the boys when Melchior and Moritz’s Latin class suddenly erupts into the testosterone-fueled chords of “The Bitch Of Living” and later in a full-cast showstopper (“Totally Fucked”) that reveals the teens’ raging desires, their unfulfilled sexual wants, and their dissatisfaction with the world around them.

Without Sheik and Sater’s songs, Spring Awakening would be nothing more than Spring Awakening would simply be an abbreviated version of a dated German play. With them, it becomes something both extraordinary and contemporary, as if 21st-century souls were inhabiting these long-deceased youths.

 Director-choreographer Travis Kendrick draws unapologetic parallels between Melchior, Moritz, and Wendla’s world and our own as news anchors’ voices report on the latest mass shooting committed by a societally alienated shooter not all that different from Spring Awakening’s disaffected teens, victims of parental neglect and an educational system that cares more about image than in protecting those in its charge.

 Among Kendrick’s inspired touches is having 19th-century characters scrutinizing 21st-century news headlines in a mix of wonder, confusion, and dismay, and a finale that has the musical’s lone remaining protagonist finding, if not hope, then at least moral support from a stageful of 2018 visitors.

Though this high-concept Spring Awakening may be too thematically specific to be as timeless as others before it, it offers Spring Awakening lovers a new vision of a favorite show while remaining faithful enough to its source material to prove a fine introduction for first-timers.

Despite hints of Bill T. Jones’ Tony-winning stomps and back kicks and leaps and jumps, Kendrick’s choreography is refreshingly original, with special snaps to a “Touch Me” that eschews the orgiastic for an exquisitely staged set of partner dances underlining these teens’ need not just for sex but for human connection.

 Gleckler’s open-faced boy-next-door heartthrob of a Melchior and Iyer’s breathtakingly lovely, budding flower of a Wendla not only sing splendidly but show off legit acting chops in a couple of powerful eleventh-hour scenes, and Polk’s über-quirky, Chris Farley-esque Moritz is as heartbreakingly alien as he is force-of-nature riveting.

 Emma Lou Delaney does particularly touching work as abuse victim Ilse, Laila Drew’s Martha sings an achingly powerful “The Dark I Know Well” after revealing welts in far more private places than previous Spring Awakenings have dared go, and Juj Seeley (Thea) and Abigail Thomas (Anna) make strong impressions too in a female ensemble made even more powerful by casting teens as teens.

 Anthony Cloyd’s sexually self-confident Hanschen and Michael Waller’s sweetly besotted Ernst earn bonus points for a same-sex seduction scene that eschews laughs for heart and romance, with Timothy Reese’s Georg and L.E. Woods’ Otto meriting their own praise as well.

Multiple adult roles are amusingly delineated by Kris Robinson and Jack Stuart, in particular their sexual-sparks-fired Fräulein Knuppeldick and Herr Knochenbruch.

Black wooden rectangles and squared attached at angles to upright posts in David Goldstein’s striking set do imaginative multiple duty, at one point serving as noise enhancers to the foot stomps of “Mama Who Bore Me” before being picked up and used as classroom slates, and later turning chairs into tables, a bed, and a casket.

 Martha Carter’s lighting could not be more stunning or varied (including some dramatic hand-held flashlight effects), and Sera Bourgeau’s period-with-an-edge costumes earn design kudos as well.

Myrona DeLaney’s melodious musical direction of refreshingly un-amped voices and Franklin Kramer’s pitch-perfect sound design ensure that a live orchestra seems barely missed.

Spring Awakening is produced for Me + You Productions by Iyer. Gleckler is assistant producer. Sam Sherry is stage manager.

Since its 2006 debut, Spring Awakening has been an opportunity for directors and choreographers to strut their own original stuff. With only the slightest echoes of its Broadway source material, Travis Kendrick’s Spring Awakening is an all-around stunner. That 100% of proceeds benefit Everytown For Gun Safety is icing on the cake.

Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard. Hollywood.
www.springawakeningforgunsafety.com

–Steven Stanley
September 1, 2018
Photos: Gigi Greene Photography

Tags: Duncan ShEIk, Los Angeles Theater Review, Lounge Theatre, Steven Sater