Frank Wedekind’s banned 19th-century classic, now a youth rock musical, is back on stage – with a young cast who came of age in the pandemic
No one saw Spring Awakening for the first 15 years of its existence. Written in 1891 by Frank Wedekind, a former cabaret performer, the German play about a group of randy teenagers trying to figure out themselves and their desires was outlawed for obscenity. Criticising and satirising bourgeois oppression, moral convention and the lack of anything close to comprehensive sex education, it was deemed entirely inappropriate for audiences. Sexual assault, abortion and suicide are all central to the plot. But they’re not there just for the shock of it. This is a show that takes the concerns and fears of teenagers seriously; and being 130 years old, Wedekind’s play was arguably one of the first to do so. As late as the 1960s, the show was still being censored in Britain.
But Spring Awakening has prevailed, and when the play was first transformed into a heady rock musical in 2006, with Glee stars Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff, it became an instant hit, winning eight Tony awards including best musical. Now that version musical is being restaged at London’s Almeida theatre, under the hand of artistic director, Rupert Goold.
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