Word: wedekind
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Spring's Awakening, which Wedekind subtitled "A Tragedy of Childhood," concerns the sexual awakening of adolescence, "the first stirrings of manhood," the unleashing of the dogs of sex. The protagonists--Melchior, Moritz, Wendla, and Ilse--feel these stirrings, and are confused by them, and find no direction from a daft and hypocritical matriarchy. Left to fend for themselves in the erotic floodtide, some swim, others drown. This, for Wedekind, is the central point; the sexual impulse is merely a force, and as a force has no moral content; it should be recognized as such, and neither hidden nor judged...
This approach complements Prum's revision of Wedekind's theme; in his hands, the play is not only a tragedy of growing up, but a tragedy of growing up too fast in the American city. All of the natural traumas of puberty and the dawning of self-consciousness are accelerated by our popular culture, by naked bodies in tight jeans, and cinematic violence, and television, television, television, impinging on us at all times of the day. Prum has made of Spring's Awakening an indictment of what might be called the California culture, in which grotesqueries are made of both...
...nymphet Ilse. Here she is as enormously seductive as only a pubescent art-groupie in the Village can be that enrapturing combination of loose-knit young limbs and eyes that reach down into your darkest urges. With a look and a walk she evokes the thematic center of Wedekind's play: the awesome power of dawning libido. And Courtney Vance is universally excellent in all four of his roles, but particularly in the end, as the Man in a Mask, the Great Father who has come to save Melchior and his dismal world...
...knows there is something more to Wendla, but hasn't reached it yet. Similarly, Barry Mann never penetrates the depths that must be there if Moritz's suicide is to have any significance. Mostly, he plays Moritz as a sort of addled simpleton, a Peanuts character, where Wedekind's whole point seems to be that children are not Peanuts characters...
...LEVELS, the production loses steam after intermission. To be sure, this is in part Wedekind's fault; Spring's Awakening starts to flail away in the end, as if the author is in a hurry to get to his striking climax. Still, this only calls for a greater focus on the director's part. Instead, Prum flails even more than Wedekind. Scenes take on the flavor of sketches from Saturday Night Live; the light, controlled parody that distinguished the first half lumbers now in its obviousness. Worse, it gets turned back on the play and the production itself, always...