This rock musical by librettist Steven Sater and composer Duncan Sheik debuted off-Broadway in 2006, and the play it’s based on, Frank Wedekind’s Frühlings Erwachen, dates back to 1891. But Porchlight Music Theatre’s moving new production feels troublingly timely in director/choreographer Brenda Didier’s taut, intimate staging, due both to the heartfelt performances of its excellent ensemble and, sadly, to today’s relentless right-wing assault on academic freedom, reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ visibility as the nation heads into pivotal midterm elections.
Set in a small and small-minded 19th-century German town, this “children’s tragedy” (as Wedekind dubbed it) concerns a group of adolescent school kids struggling to comprehend and express their emerging sexuality despite the constrictions of their repressive authoritarian social environment. The story’s content—focusing on the intertwining relationships of rebellious free-thinker Melchior Gabor (Jack DeCesare), innocent and confused Wendla Bergmann (Maya Lou Hlava), and outsider Moritz Stiefel (Quinn Kelch)—includes unplanned pregnancy, abortion, homosexuality, bullying, physical and sexual abuse, and teenage suicide.
Spring Awakening Through 6/2: Thu 7 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM: also Thu 5/5, 10:30 AM, Thu 5/12, 1:30 PM, Wed 6/1, 1:30 PM, and Thu 6/2, 1:30 PM; no performances Thu 5/5-5/19; Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, 773-777-9884, porchlightmusictheatre.org, $42-$74.
When the show premiered 16 years ago, the songwriters’ employment of a rock idiom in telling an 1890s story struck some as self-consciously anachronistic. But here the score (including songs titled “The Bitch of Living,” “My Junk,” and “Totally Fucked”) feels perfectly natural as an expression of its characters’ inner worlds, and Porchlight’s Spring Awakening conveys a somber gravitas even in its hardest-rocking numbers. The production’s powerful impact owes much to the beautifully layered choral vocals and transparent instrumental textures achieved under the music direction of keyboardist Justin Akira Kono (who leads a classical string quartet augmented by a rock rhythm section) and the sound design of Matthew R. Chase (engineered by Jamie Davis).
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