Spring Awakening: There Isn't A Subtitle Mean Enough

I went to see Spring Awakening yesterday, and I was excited. I really was. I had heard wonderful things from loads of people, and I saw a fun clip on YouTube of a high-energy musical number ("The Bitch of Living") with boys dancing on chairs and singing about sex. The musical is based on a controversial 19th-century play with lots of the original dialogue preserved but also with songs and cute boys. How could I go wrong? This was the perfect formula for exactly my kind of entertainment. When I want to like something, I can usually find a way to like it even if it's kinda mediocre.

But not when it sucks, which all that Spring Awakening managed to do. After the first act, I was seething and the thought of sitting through another hour of this crap (which I had to do because I wasn't alone) was making my head hurt. I couldn't sit still, and during intermission I had to run outside and call the only successful actor/singer in my life to leave some wrath on his voicemail because I knew he'd understand.

Here begins the review. I'm going to give things away later, but hopefully you're taking my advice and staying far far away from this show, so it shouldn't matter: Spring Awakening is without question the most overwrought piece of wannabe bullshit I've ever seen on screen or stage. The dialogue parts were tolerable and I even laughed two times, but I didn't give a shit about a single character, primarily because every time the music started, I wanted to gouge their eyes out with a nail.

That's the worst part of this abominable show: the music. And being a musical, it's kind of important. The "Bitch of Living" song? Yeah, that was the only thing in Act I that had the slightest bit of appeal, and even that wasn't nearly as good as I expected, the YouTube video obviously depending on editing to create the illusion of energy. All the other numbers were stagnant, boring, and meaningless. Every song had these RETARDED lyrics so overflowing with trite metaphors they were completely incoherent. "I want to sing the song of purple summer"? "Brush the pearls of my dreams and sing them to that stars"? What the fuck does that even mean!?!?! (I'm misquoting the second one, I know, but I can't remember how the shit really went.) The entire show was like this! With this crap "poetry" along with the show's theme of freedom from silencing adults and their sexual puritanism, the show should have been called Emo Livejournal: The Musical.

God, every time an actor pulled out a microphone I cringed. The lights would go down, these stupid colored stars in the background would set the "mood" and then the actor would stand there motionless singing their stupid little anthem that even fucking Tori Amos would roll her eyes at. (I hate Tori Amos, by the way.) Sometimes the brilliant staging would have the other kids walking around like little sheep in a Christmas pageant, but mostly you wondered why the rest of the cast was even there. The story was about three kids, and they were the only ones with any use. All the other characters had dumb little subplots that went nowhere and contained about as much character development as a Dick and Jane book. "See Ilsa get beaten. Run, Ilsa, run!" "See the gay guys' one scene. It is gratuitous. End, scene, end for the love of God END!" But no, the gay guys have to sing the same vapid song the leads sang in Act I that was all "Read the word of my body. You are my bruise." Jesus Christ.

The three leads (characters Wendla, Melchoir, and Moritz) had pretty good voices. Everyone else was just ok except the fat kid whose raspy crooning wouldn't get him onto American Idol so God knows where he came from. Sadly, Moritz eats it at the start of the second act in one of the world's weakest suicide scenes, and that actor was the only one with any personality even if it did become schtick early on. Well, piss, there goes a third of our talent. Then everyone sped through the rest of the plot (they wasted too much time with the horrible music in Act I so all the drama had to happen at once. I think people thought it was actually "intense." Whatever.) Oooh, expulsion, boarding school, pregnancy, abortion, predictable death, all accompanied by more idiotic songs having nothing to do with the people singing them. It's sad, I really think the original play might have been good before they dicked it up.

Also, we have to talk about the guy playing Melchior. He was an understudy, but hot and he had an ok voice and all. But he had this disgusting problem where he kept spitting all over the place. His singing was all consonants, and all 21 of them were accompanied by these spectacular misty effluvia. It was like fucking Sea World in there, and I felt really bad for poor Wendla having to do all these duets with him. He even drooled at one point, and I wasn't even that close to him to see it!

But I digress, that's not important.

God, and you should have heard the screaming when the show ended! I couldn't believe so many people bought in to this abhorrent production. Were they actually moved by those half-wit lyrics? The tired music? The uninspired staging? Maybe it was the plot that the creators of the show seemed to think unimportant. The fervor of applause and cheering had a particular quality to it. It was the high-pitched scream of fanaticism. The sound reminded me of Rent, a show that garnered such a fan base because of what it was about rather than how it was presented. The difference here is that Rent didn't suck. The audience's reaction was completely beyond reason, I will never understand it. There was nothing redeeming about this ridiculous production. Spring Awakening was inexcusable.