When it premiered in 2006, Spring Awakening joined the pantheon – and rose to its upper ranks – of shows about power, magic and utter horror of young adulthood. The Steven Sater (book and lyrics) and Duncan Sheik (music) adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s late 19th century cautionary tale, gets a vibrant production from Short North Stage, directed by Edward Carignan.
Spring Awakening follows a friend group as they learn about themselves and each other – Wendla (Emma Rose Johnson), Martha (Zuri Clarno), Anna (Shannon Lane), Thea (Lillian Doll), Otto (Carter Minor), Hanschen (Hunter Minor), Ernst (Nicholas Bradley), Georg (Ethan Zink), Moritz (Michael Lee, Jr) and Melchior (Lake Wilburn), with previously expelled student Ilse (Sydney Freihofer) appearing occasionally. It sets their universal hormonal and intellectual struggles in a world shifting into a future some of the adults – male adults played by Thom Christopher Warren, female adults played by Krista Lively Stauffer – refuse to accept the same way they refuse to acknowledge the main characters aren’t children anymore, with similarly disastrous results.
Carignan reprises his strategy of using young actors – most slightly older than the teenagers they’re playing, but in the ballpark – from his West Side Story to similarly potent effect. Charismatic, haunted Melchoir is at the center of the story, wise enough to think most of the world is nonsense but not emotionally mature enough to process that without hurting others. Wilburn gives us a powerful, hungry take on the character, vibrating even when he’s still, working through the next few moves, sure his cleverness will win the day. His leadership, his rallying on songs like “Totally Fucked,” goes from a simmer to a violent boil in ways that feel organic and thrilling, even more terrifying as he seduces the characters and the audience.
Melchior’s counterpart, his equal in curiosity and intellect but held down by the double standards for a woman and learning the danger of loving someone who, as she says, “Cares not one whit for any of it,” Wendla, also gets an exciting, powerful take from Johnson. Johnson’s opening solo, “Mama Who Bore Me” sets up the tone world for the show and shocked my senses awake, and her duets with Wilburn, like “The Word of Your Body” and “The Guilty Ones” are as powerful as they are haunting.
There’s not a bad vocal or acting performance from any of the actors playing the children, uniformly strong and distinct voices blending beautifully again and again. Lee’s doomed, singled out, and scapegoated Moritz, is a gorgeous portrayal of the character as someone desperate to live, to find a way out of the bad hands he’s dealt, on soaring songs like “The Bitch of Living,” and the horrible realization that he couldn’t find it on the pulsing irony of “I Don’t Do Sadness” hits like a hammer.
Freihofer’s Ilse sees and knows more than the others but is not able to act on it, and her frantic frustration is an electric charge through the room whenever her character appears, and her feature on “Blue Wind” stops time. Clarno delivers a heart-wrenching lead on “The Dark I Know Well,” shifting between voices and rhythms like a slashing saber, colored and accentuated by Freihofer and the boys. The adults are more of an enigmatic monolith, ciphers, and it’s to Warren and Stauffer’s credit that they make the impression they do, giving the show ballast and depth that doesn’t exist in every production I’ve seen. I’ve probably seen a half-dozen production over the years, and I’ve never seen the moment where Wendla’s mother confronts her that punched me in the chest as hard as Stauffer and Johnson do here.
The Sater/Sheik score gets loving treatment not just from the voices, but also Eric Alford’s music direction, leading a tight, seven-piece orchestra from the keyboard, with the haunting piano perfectly defined and placed and the gorgeous, moody strings – played here courtesy of Robin D. Coolidge Jr’s cello, Alexander Locke’s viola, and Mad Richard’s violin (also second guitar) – and crunching drums courtesy of William Mayer, also with credit to Laurel Waller’s nuanced sound design.
Spring Awakening reunites Carignan with his West Side Story collaborator Trevor Michael Schmidt as choreographer. Schmidt balances the earthy and ethereal qualities of the characters and material, stomping and tossing one another around gives way to more delicate movements and back again without feeling like jarring shifts.
Carignan gives a wide canvas for Schmidt and the actors to play, with an evocative set by Jason Bolen, and enough room and space to capture the frantic energy of blossoming youth, but enough space and a sure hand to let the emotions land, including a really interesting use of partially lit mirrors without glass that reinforces the ways the characters reflect each other, themselves and the world.
This production of Spring Awakening reminds the audience of the work’s audacity and power while finding sadly renewed relevance, sending the audience I was with out to the street humming the hooky, sharp songs and talking about its themes.
Spring Awakening runs through June 4 with performances at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit shortnorthstage.org.