Were Critics Moved By Off-Broadway's Spring Awakening?

The musical Spring Awakening, based on a Frank Wedekind play and featuring music by pop singer Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Sater, has been in development for quite a while. Originally announced for a mounting at the Roundabout Theatre Company a few seasons back, the show finally had its New York bow at the Atlantic Theater on June 15. Did critics think it was worth the wait?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Rob Kendt in his Broadway.com Review: "The characters from Wedekind's original 1891 play, deftly streamlined in Sater's adaptation, are dressed in Susan Hilferty's iconic period costumes, and they still quaintly gather woodruff... But they also regularly pull handheld microphones out of coat pockets and sing about returning phone calls... And they execute self-fondling music-video choreography... The songs take place in a separate reality from the book. Though both worlds are conjured vividly by director Michael Mayer and his knockout cast, the contrast between the emo power ballads and Wedekind's stark anti-conformist fable has a strange, probably unintended effect: The songs, for all their volume and frankness, let off adolescent steam in ways that feel familiar, even innocuous. It's the 115-year-old play sandwiched between the musical numbers that retains its shock value… Pumping up the volume, not to mention slanging down the lyrics, doesn't necessarily amplify the insight."

Charles Isherwood of The New York Times: "A fresh breeze of true inspiration blows steadily through this ambitious if imperfect show, which features alluringly melancholy music by the pop singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Sater… [The writers] invest Wedekind's young boys with the anachronistic souls of would-be rock 'n' roll stars, dreamers and screamers strutting on stages in their minds, even as they insist we see them in their original historical context… The conceit is bold, funny and inviting, and it is matched by a vibrant production from the director, Michael Mayer, that is all of those things, too… Despite the craft and integrity of much of their work, Mr. Sheik and Mr. Sater's musical falls into some of the usual traps accompanying attempts to translate a work of art from one medium into another. It tends to simplify the emotional textures in the play… Problems also arise from the challenge of making pop music function as theater music."

Joe Dziemianowicz of The Daily News: "Puberty and adolescence can be confusing. The same goes for Spring Awakening… If the production, guided with gusto—and endless energy—by director Michael Mayer, isn't entirely successful it's not, it's at least partly so because most of the characters remain too sketchy for too long. It's hard to know a whole lot, or for that matter care a whole lot, about them… [Sheik] delivers some nifty melodies, ranging from acoustic-guitar ballads to hard-driving rock."

David Rooney of Variety: "Playwright Sater's adaptation adheres to the broad contours of Wedekind's drama, preserving the slightly stilted, formal language of the period. This approach provides an effective contrast with the acoustic pop-rock idiom the singers use handheld mics and contemporary language of the songs, which function as interior monologues articulating the kids' otherwise inexpressible thoughts. Sheik's dreamy melodies seem unstructured by conventional musical theater standards, and Sater's lyrics can tend toward the arcane. But there's a cracked poetry in evidence that fits the material and the painful introspectiveness of adolescence, making the show's youthful spirit feel sincere and heartfelt."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "At first, it may seem a little disconcerting to see cast members, the boys dressed in knee britches and the girls in plain, old-fashioned dresses, pull out hand-held microphones and begin to sing. Yet book, music and lyrics soon become strangely complementary. The defiance and the yearning of the songs are matched by the raw emotions in these episodic tales told by the cast, mostly youthful performers."

Sam Thielman of Newsday: "Today, when teenage sex is occasionally acknowledged, the new musical's cautionary bent seems heavy-handed, and its condemnation of authority figures who would conceal sex from their charges is rendered impotent by even the most modest cable package… Sater's plot sticks close to his source material, but he saddles his actors with teeth-grinding descriptives like 'that sad, soulful sleepyhead, Moritz Steifel!' and generally takes a musical about repressed high schoolers too seriously. Like an overdose of potency drugs, the songs by Sheik and Sater and Bill T. Jones' choreography contribute to the painful stiffness. If Sater's lines are hard to take, his lyrics are doubly so."