Spring Awakening in Review

RATING: TRUE RELIGION!
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Wow!  Wow Wow Wow!  Last night I drove all the way to Orange County to watch Spring Awakening in Costa Mesa.  Michi introduced me to goldstar and I found tickets for $13.75 with fees and everything.  I didn't know anything about the storyline.  I just knew it won a lot of awards on broadway.  I googled a few reviews, but didn't read much into it.  I just read that it was contraversial. The reviews were either horrible or spectacular.  Nothing in between.  So I didn't look into it any further.  I told Jackie it was some show about sex and asked her to come with me.  Haha. she said she read it was about masturbation.  We just really had no idea what it was about.


Storyline: The story is about adolesence.  Not just sex.  Everything you go through during that time.  Usually you hide it from your parents. You try to figure it out with your friends.  And your parents pretend like those things you are going through don't exist.  There is this cry for help that is outright ignored by adults.  The time is set in the olden days in Germany. HA! I call it olden days.  Everything for me falls into that category.  The play was written in 1891-ish, so I'm going to say it's that time period?  They were wearing colonial type clothes. 

The music:  The music is Indie-rock.  It was awesome!  They had a band in the back.  The music was so so awesome!  It made the play even better because the setting was not in our time.  But the music was so in the present.  The issues they touch on are so relevant just the same as they were 100+ years ago.

The cast:  I don't really know how to critique a cast.  I do know though, when I think they are awesome or they are mediocre.  I thought the cast was good.  Their voices were moving.  I think if I was closer to the stage, it would have been very different. 

The Venue: This was showing at the Orange County performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. This place is huge. I mean HUGE.  Since we got $14 tickets, we were sitting at the way top (3rd tier).  You could see the whole stage like an aerial view.  You cannot make out their faces whatsoever.  You just see shapes of bodies.  You can hear very clearly when they were speaking. But when they sang, some of the words were muffled so it was hard to hear what they were singing about.  I wish I was able to sit closer to get more involved with their emotions.

Final thoughts:  In the beginning I was confused what was going on.  There is a sort of raunchy part in the beginning so after that I thought "oh great, this is going to be some very liberal statement kind of show.  I'm going to hate it because of my very conservative beliefs."  But halfway through the first half I was surprised at how they portrayed adolescent issues.  It was the raw truth.  It made me go back in time to when I was that age and thought about what I went through.  The main point I walked away with was that it really is the parents job to teach kids about life.  About changes we go through as children, to teenagers, to young adults, to our own parenthood.  Even though there may be very contraversial and um..rated R scenes, I encourage all parents and well everyone to go and watch this.  It has moved me in a way to have so much more compassion towards teenagers.  We truly forget or make ourselves forget what it was like to be a teenager.  This is a reminder of what it is really like to be that age.  With so much crime and tragedies taking place in younger kids today like suicides, rampant shootings, etc we need to take a front seat in what we teach them.  In how we raise them.  In the values we instill in them. And the love and joy we should give them.  We need to take responsibility, not just for parents, but all of us, to be role models for our youth.

Visit http://www.springawakening.com/ to see if they will be touring near you.