Reprocessed

I’m back in New York this week, and I went to see Spring Awakening at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. I’m a huge fan of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s collaboration Phantom Moon, so I thought I’d see the show if I got the chance.

In short, it was fantastic - the cast, staging, and music worked brilliantly together. I highly recommend you go and see it if you get the chance (it won about a billion Tonys too).

The only complaint I had was that I felt the homosexual awakening of two of the characters was played more for laughs than tenderness - camp rather than dangerous boundary crossing (in 1890s germany…) A lot of that seemed to come from the audience, who laughed at the kinds of teenage awkardnesses that were received as poignant when it was the (straight) leads discovering each other.

That said, it brought real depth to its exploration of all the other issues it dealt with, and its frankness, and wit, was really refreshing. You really should go and see it.