MAGGIE GILROY
Editor in Chief
The spirit of self-discovery and youthful angst will inhabit President Virginia Horvath’s backyard as the Performing Arts Company presents Frank Wedekind’s classic tragedy, “Spring Awakening.” Directed by senior acting major Cody Jones, with assistance by junior acting major Joanna Shapiro, the classic German play marks the last PAC production of the year.
Translated by Jonathan Franzen, the play was originally performed in Germany in 1906 and tells the story of a group of children who are at the brink of discovering their own sexuality, despite the efforts of the adults in their lives to limit their knowledge and censor the information they receive.
According to the play’s Facebook page, “Spring Awakening” premiered in New York in 1917 and closed after one night as a result of public outrage and charges of obscenity. The play experienced a surge in popularity in the U.S. in 2006 when Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater adapted the play into a hit rock musical that went on to win the Tony Award for Best Musical.
While our current culture is no stranger to a sexually-charged media, the play’s themes of teenage sex, suicide, abortion, masturbation and sadomasochism were groundbreaking when it originally premiered. While the characters in the play are young children, they grapple with tough issues, including sexual abuse and rape, suicide and abortion.
Unlike the youth today, who have access to virtually any answers they may seek through the internet, the children of “Spring Awakening” rely on adults for crucial information about life. It is the withholding of information by main character Wendla Bergman’s mother that ultimately results in the 14-year-old’s demise.
“I know that I grew up with the same questions that Wendla has for her mother, but I was lucky enough to have access to the answers,” said Elaine Rava, a junior musical theatre major who portrays Wendla. “Wendla, unfortunately, meets a very different fate because of her mother’s censorship.”
Micayla Greco, a sophomore musical theatre major, portrays Martha Bessel, Wendla’s friend who is physically and sexually abused by her father.
“My biggest challenge was trying to get into the head of my character,” said Greco. “I don’t have a father, and I definitely don’t have an abusive family. So finding the right way to portray her innocence, because she is so young, but also the fact [that] she’s had her innocence taken from her, was hard.”
James Lillin, a sophomore acting and English dual major, relates the youthfulness of the characters to memories of his own youth.
“The show harkens back to the most beautiful spring days spent skipping stones and lying in the sun, as well as those tragic and unexpected days that make us grow up all too soon,” said Lillin. “The characters are not some archaic German schoolchildren as one might think; they’re the kids that were with you on the schoolbus, the ones that pushed you around on the playground and the ones that you hung out with on long, cool nights. There’s a lot of self-discovery going on in relating our current selves back to the children we were only a few years ago in order to draw on that for inspiration.”
While Lillin connects with the younger characters, he is given the task of portraying the less-likable adult characters.
“It’s been very challenging and rewarding for me to really get into the mindset of these characters, which the audience may view simply and malicious and selfish, but which I need to view as people just as human as the children,” said Lillin. “At first, I had a hard time getting into the shoes of the types of adults I spent most of my recent childhood resenting so much, but with careful and non-judgemental examination of the text and characters, I really actually understand and sympathize with where they are coming from in a way that would have been incomprehensible to me at the start of the rehearsal process.”
Despite having to work with the complex and tragic themes of the play, many cast members cite the play’s difficult language of the text as one of their biggest challenges.
“The biggest challenge in working on this production is allowing yourself to be fully immersed in the complex language and not judge yourself when you’re moving,” said Angelo Heimowitz, a sophomore musical theatre major who plays the role of Otto.
“Our rehearsal process seemed to be designed to strongly connect the cast to each other and the text,” said Carly Dieck, a sophomore musical theatre major who portrays Ilse. “We did a lot of contact improvisation with each other and spent a lot of rehearsals discussing what the text deals with and its relevance, which I think was very important and genius of our director to have us do. Had we not, we could not have properly portrayed this text with the true and personal meaning it has.”
“Spring Awakening” will feature two performances, from April 25-26, at 7:30 p.m. at the President’s House on 194 Central Ave. Tickets are free; however, there is a suggested donation of $5.
“People should come see ‘Spring Awakening’ because now, more than ever, I feel these issues are relevant to society today,” said Greco. “Gender versus sex, homosexuality, abuse, sadomasochism, suicide and especially rape — the fact that we can perform this show for free in the backyard of our female president’s house, which at the time of the play was not even a thought people could fathom, means everyone needs to take the time to come see it.”