Spring, Sprang, Sprung

If you're looking for a uniquely modern musical experience with a fantastic indie rock score check out Spring Awakening this weekend at the Bushnell. If it's an epic plot or satisfying resolution you're after, I suggest you wait for Porgy and Bess (coming in June).

Spring Awakening is an awkwardly modernized story of a sexually-repressed German village in the late 1800s. The tension between the contemporary score and the 19th-century setting was a bit cumbersome, and the play's message seems almost irrelevant today.

The stage is set as a classroom where the students are punished for thinking outside the box. As puberty hits, some try to fight it while our protagonist begins to question authority. His intentions are good, but in the second half he takes a quick turn from hero to innocent antagonist, suffering from his own curiosites and taking down those closest to him in the process. We are meant to chastise the authority figures for turning a blind-eye to their children's cries for help, but it is their own disobedience that gets them into trouble.

The hot young cast and hip score is enough to carry the grotesquely tragic story through to its abrupt and dismal ending, though the audience is no better for it. Yes, we know repression is bad. We are angry at the parents who turn their backs on their children, and the teachers who fail to educate them. But as a society we are for the most part beyond this, or at least aware of the consequences. This story should have remained a historical homage, rather than be thrust into the present as though modern music would somehow make it relevant again. Why not write a new script with current language, costume and social issues?

Anyway, like i said... awesome music, hot young cast.