Director Tim Dang, choreographer Preston Mui, an all-around sensational cast, and a stunning production design make East West Players’ Spring Awakening a standout among the umpteen productions I’ve seen so far.

Scenic designer Christopher Scott Murillo’s gothic cathedral-esque set and music director Marc Macalintal’s pipe organ intro plunge us immediately into the church-ruled, sexually repressive society in which Spring Awakening’s teen protagonists attempt to navigate their burgeoning adolescent desires.

Chief among these early-20th-century German teenagers are resident school hunk Melchior Gabor (Thomas Winter), virginal beauty Wendla Bergmann (Mia Sempertegui), and socially awkward introvert Moritz Stiefel (Marcus Phillips), but don’t let the musical’s long-ago-and-far-away time frame fool you.

The Duncan Sheik-Steven Sater musical adaptation of German playwright Frank Wedekind’s 1906 drama Frühlings Erwachen broke new musical theater ground on Broadway a hundred years later when it tackled such edgy topics as child abuse, S&M, incest, abortion, and suicide among teenagers just now awakening to their sexuality.

Sheik’s pulsating rock melodies and Sater’s expletive-packed lyrics are the furthest thing from antiquated (as Wendla’s soulful “Mama Who Bore Me” makes immediately clear), and if that weren’t proof enough that these high schoolers could well be living today, just wait until a girl-band rock beat takes over, or when the handsome, popular, self-confident Melchior and his introverted, inhibited, wet-dream-plagued schoolmate Moritz’s Latin class suddenly erupts into the testosterone-fueled chords of “The Bitch Of Living,” not to mention an Act Two showstopper (“Totally Fucked”) that reveals the teens’ raging desires, their unfulfilled sexual wants, and their dissatisfaction with the world around them.

Without these musical numbers and The Pink Floyd-esque “Touch Me,” the anthem-like “I Believe,” and the heartbreaking “Left Behind,” Spring Awakening would simply be an abbreviated version of a dated German play.

With them, it becomes something extraordinary, as if 21st-century souls were inhabiting the bodies of bisexual hottie Hänschen (Eric Renna) and the closeted gay classmate (Genki Hall as Ernst) who’s crushing on him; Martha (Sarah Marie Hernandez), physically abused by her father on a nightly basis; Ilse (Madison Grepo), who’s found refuge from her own abusive home in the local artists’ colony; and the equally horny Georg (Jaylen Baham), Otto (James Everts), Thea (Justine Rafael), and Anna (Leianna Weaver), with Daniel Blinkoff and Tamlyn Tomita completing the cast as parents, teachers, and other mostly unsupportive (and often downright hostile) adults.

All of this adds up to a potent mix made even more powerful on Broadway by choreographer Bill T. Jones’ groundbreaking mix of stomps and back kicks and leaps and jumps, not to mention retro-clad cast members suddenly grasping hand mikes to belt out Shiek’s and Sater’s songs like present-day rock stars.

Early regional productions opted to mimic this original Broadway vision, however Spring Awakening has since then become a unique showcase for each new director and choreographer’s visions, and the East West Players revival is no exception.

Director Dang keeps the entire cast on stage throughout most of the show, underlining that (to quote from another musical about sexually repressed teens) “somebody’s eyes are watching” in a society that offers adolescents no escape.

Choreographer Mui takes full advantage of the cast’s ubiquitous presence in dance sequences that prove every bit as striking as Jones’ Broadway originals, but uniquely Mui’s.

In addition, director Dang makes particularly ingenious use of Murillo’s upstairs-downstairs set in a seduction scene that allows its participants a rare moment of privacy and in an eleventh-hour bit of divine intervention.

Derek Jones’ electrifying lighting design features multicolored LED strip lights to eye-catching effect, with JoJo Siu (costumes), Glenn Michael Baker (properties), Gillian Woodson (hair and makeup) and Cricket S. Myers (sound) providing equally dazzling design contributions and Macalinal and his eight-piece band providing Broadway-caliber accompaniment along the way.

Still, none of this would work nearly as well as it does without the performances Dang has elicited from lead trio Winter (fulfilling every girl’s romantic dreams), Sempertegui (an exquisite, exquisitely voiced Wendla), and Phillips (heartbreakingly vulnerable and real) and supporting players alike.

Solo numbers allow Grepo and Hernandez to reveal impressive power pipes; Renna and Hall couldn’t be more touching as teen boys in love (or at the very least in lust), and Baham, Everts, Rafael, and Weaver make the very most of their smaller but no less splendidly played roles

Last but not least, Asian-American stage-and-screen icon Tomita and SoCal stage treasure Blinkoff create one memorable adult character after another.

CJ Cruz, Evan Pascual, and Kay Sibal are understudies.

Arnab Banerji is dramaturg. Cesar Cipriano is fight director. Carly DW Bones is intimacy coordinator. Brandon Hong Cheng is stage manager and Irene DH Lee is assistant stage manager.

I’ve now seen a whopping eighteen different productions of Spring Awakening, and East West Players’ is one of the absolute best of the bunch. Audiences need look no further than Little Tokyo for an evening or afternoon of contemporary musical theater at its most innovative and thrilling.

East West Players, David Henry Hwang Theatre, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles.
www.eastwestplayers.org

–Steven Stanley
November 3, 2023
Photos: Jenny Graham

Tags: Duncan ShEIk, East West Players, Frank Wedekind, Los Angeles Theater Review, Steven Sater