Customer Reviews

Spring Awakening: A Play

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... in just one century! There's little doubt in my reading mind that Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (conceived in San Francisco, born in Germany, miseducated in Switzerland) meant to shock the socks off the bourgeois public when he wrote 'Frühlings Erwachen' in 1891. It's a play about teenagers -- yes, Virginia, there were teenagers in 1891 -- doing things that even adults couldn't do on a conventional stage; there are explicit scenes of rape, suicide, homos*xuality, and mast*rbation. One teenage girl is a debauched artists' model, and a childish playmate! One 14-year-old girl is beaten and abused by her father, and another envies her for it. The latter pesters her mother for the 'secrets of reproduction', finds herself incomprehensibly pregnant after the rape, and dies in an ab*rtion.

"Spring Awakening" was first staged in Germany in 1906, in a heavily censored version. It played in New York for one day in 1917 but was condemned as obscenity. I wonder, would an audience in 2009 find this play horribly shocking, or would we smugly guffaw at the 19th Century moralities that it mocks. I have a feeling that the world has been so thoroughly Wedekinderized since 1891 that we'd need real blood and nudity on stage to be sufficiently shaken up. When the central character, the boy Melchior, is sent to the reformatory, for instance, he joins a circle of boys competing for a coin by trying to be the first to spurt s*men on it. That might startle even a New York audience toughened up by David Mamet.

Gnarly stuff, eh? Nevertheless, Wedekind meant his play to be uproariously funny, and it is. The scenes in which the adults - parents and teachers - reveal their utter hapless in consequentiality are fresh and witty still. The unexpected appearance of a ghost, the boy Moritz who'd blown his head off, in the final scene is a brilliant absurdity. This translation, by Jonathan Franzen, seems to me to catch the sardonic tone of Wedekind's original German very effectively. Even if you may never see a decent production of Spring Awakening, it's well worth reading, as the first vernal flower of the modern theater.

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This plays reveals a common theme at the time, the enslavement of young people in Germany within their boarding schools. Törless is the most famous victim of this environment. But here we are dealing with Moritz and Melchior, proving that M&M's is not the best of medicine in life. This total control of the young people's life that has only one objective, to study, to learn Latin and translate Greek, goes along with an absolute desexualization of their psyche in the name of an extreme puritan vision of ethics and life. This causes a depressive existential vision in these teenagers who look for some satisfaction anyway they can, some erotic information and literature, some friendship among themselves as a surrogate of the love they need and are deprived of, even banging up the first girl they find on their road and who knows nothing about love or rather intercourse. This produces a drama, of course. One fourteen year old boy, Moritz, commits suicide in his boarding school that expels his best friend, Melchior, who had passed some information about the physical activities they are all dreaming of, and had impregnated a certain Wendla who will die of an overdose of an abortive drug given to her by her own mother. This sexual information is considered as the unethical trigger of the suicide. Melchior's family then decides to send him to a house of correction where he discovers real evil and convinces himself he is the most guilty human being in the world. He is then tempted by crime or, because of some remnant of ethics, by suicide to put away his good for nothing person. This dilemma is set up on the stage after Melchior's escape from the house of correction in the last scenes in the graveyard where the suicidee Moritz is buried. Melchior is thus, then and there tempted to join his departed friend Moritz who is reaching out for him. But life is stronger and it comes embodied in an unidentified man who steps in and explains to Melchior that life is a long road that can provide all kinds of surprises that death cannot. This play is the matrix of many other plays and films, the most famous film being the Dead Poets' Society. But this play recently found in France its perfect illustration and re-enactment in French teenagers' prisons with several suicides resulting from total negligence if not unethical mistakes from the personnel who considered - and probably still considers - speaking of suicide was some kind of blackmail from the kids, even if they were depressive which was another way of blackmailing the personnel, wasn't it, and some kind of humorous joke to be used as a torturing device by the personnel to satisfy their sadistic and revengeful perversion onto the kids they are supposed to educate to some fair social life. Nothing has changed under the sun, or under the moon as for that. Not even the fate of young people when their society forgets they are human, forgets it takes a whole village to educate one young child, forgets they have to love people if they want to really educate and reform them. But love is the only thing thatis not available in the pedagogical and "professional" minds of these people who are called prison wardens and other personnel.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine, University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University of Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines.

... in just a century! There's little doubt in my reading mind that Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (conceived in San Francisco, born in Germany, miseducated in Switzerland) meant to shock the socks off the bourgeois public when he wrote 'Frühlings Erwachen' in 1891. It's a play about teenagers -- yes, Virginia, there were teenagers in 1891 -- doing things that even adults couldn't do on a conventional stage; there are explicit scenes of rape, suicide, homosexuality, and masturbation. One teenage girl is a debauched artists' model, and a childish playmate! One 14-year-old girl is beaten and abused by her father, and another envies her for it. The latter pesters her mother for the 'secrets of reproduction', finds herself incomprehensibly pregnant after the rape, and dies in an abortion.

"Spring Awakening" was first staged in Germany in 1906, in a heavily censored version. It played in New York for one day in 1917 but was condemned as obscenity. I wonder, would an audience in 2009 find this play horribly shocking, or would we smugly guffaw at the 19th Century moralities that it mocks. I have a feeling that the world has been so thoroughly Wedekinderized since 1891 that we'd need real blood and nudity on stage to be sufficiently shaken up. When the central character, the boy Melchior, is sent to the reformatory, for instance, he joins a circle of boys competing for a coin by trying to be the first to spurt semen on it. That might startle even a New York audience today.

Gnarly stuff, eh? Nevertheless, Wedekind meant his play to be uproariously funny, and it is. The scenes in which the adults - parents and teachers - reveal their utter hapless in consequentiality are fresh and witty still. The unexpected appearance of a ghost, the boy Moritz who'd blown his head off, in the final scene is a brilliant absurdity. This translation, by Jonathan Franzen, seems to me to catch the sardonic tone of Wedekind's original German very effectively. Even if you may never see a decent production of Spring Awakening, it's well worth reading, as the first vernal flower of the modern theater.

Spring awakening explores the sexual awakening of teenage boys and girls in Germany in the late 1800's. It was shocking in its day, and still is somewhat today, despite the openness of our society.
The Frank Wedekind play has been updated, set to music, and will open as a major Broadway Musical in Spring, 2003. Watch for it, you will be blown away! And be sure to read the play first. You'll be amazed at how true the production is to Frank Wedekind's fine work.

I heard Franzen speak about how unfaithful the recent NY production was to Wedekind's anarchistic perspective. This is a brash and funny send up of modern society's sexual hypocrisy. Fast read, too.

The subject matters are dark and complex and although it was written in the late 19th century, incredibly relevant to our time--adolescent sexuality, abuse, rape, suicide, homosexuality, hipocricy,etc. These are expressed in sad but cynically funny way, I often felt guilty for laughing. A children's tragedy indeed!

fine translation of a classic expressionistic piece----beautifully phrased and imagisitically florid. very clear in charaterization and in progression of time and events, albeit realities alternate between fantasy, imagnation and reality. Great for theatre teachers and studio acting teachers. For scene work, Wedekind is a wonderful writer. The division of scenes makes each sequence an event in itself.

Jonathan Franzen's translation of the Frank Wedekind play, SPRING AWAKENING, will give you an honest taste of what the playwright truly wrote so many years ago. Opinions of it will probably be influenced by each reader's history. Are you reading it after seeing the play? Are you reading it after seeing the musical? Are you reading it -- as I did -- without having seen any stage production? I picked it up due to all the hype in the press about the recent productions -- both musical and straight up.

In the introduction to this edition, Franzen is extremely critical of the musical and the liberties taken with Wedekind's work. I'm not surprised, however. Although the play does include stage directions, many scenes seem a bit confusing. For instance, when Melchior rapes Martha in the hayloft, readers of this play would never know it -- at least initially. All we get is Martha saying "Oh -- oh -- oh!" repeatedly (sounding somewhat like an old Dick and Jane primer from way back).

So yes, all those teen topics are here, just in early 20th century muted tones. If you know the play already, it'll all make perfect sense. If not, act like a director and direct your imaginary actors as you read. It will make up for any gaps and give the comic lines some extra pizazz. Apparently, "director discretion" is the thing with this interesting play.

I read the whole play in one day. It isn't quite as good as the musical, but anyone who likes the music will enjoy the play as well.

Hughes' translation seems as rich, exciting & electric to modern readers as the original text must have been to audiences a century ago. It avoids the stiff awkwardness that former English translations have been known for, while still remaining true to Wedekind's dark symbolism and expressionistic overtones. A must-read for theater-lovers and practictioners alike.