Spring Reawakened: The Mind and Matter of Rock and Rebellion

What constitutes a rebellion against conformity? Is the desire for revolution a matter of action or simply a state of mind? In the 1990s, America’s counterculture was founded on the alternative, grunge, and punk rock movements that embodied the spirit of intrapersonal tension and social upheaval. The ideas emphasized through this counterculture have utilized and influenced many art forms, including theatre. Steven Sater’s Spring Awakening exudes the same unruly spirit of the ‘90s, but the musical’s setting, 19th century Germany, does little to connect contemporary audiences to the themes. To accentuate the rebellious spirit inherent in the script, an adaptation of the play will be set in America during the 1990s. Furthermore, the internal conflicts within the three protagonists, Wendla Bergman, Moritz Stiefel, and Melchior Gabor—who each represent a facet of Sigmund Freud’s map of the human subconscious—will be externalized through the characters’ use of live musical instruments onstage. In each of the Poetics’ categories, alterations will be made to the original production in order to liberate its underlying turmoil.
The plot will be restructured as a framed narrative, known as the Chinese box device. Essentially, Spring Awakening will become a “story within a story.” The first scene, in which Wendla asks her mother about human conception, will be truncated and will serve as the external frame of the story. Wendla’s mother will conclude the scene with “In order for a women to conceive a child…” (Sater 17). Then, plot will jump to the subsequent scene, which begins inside the framed narrative and proceed as normal. After the song “Those You’ve Known,” the musical will return to the first scene, the framing device, and conclude ...

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.... Simultaneously, the actors will have to “rock out” during musical numbers while singing and playing instruments.
Every decision made in this production of Spring Awakening focuses on highlighting themes of rebellion, psychological conflict, and the ability of high-energy rock music to influence social movements. These ideas are present in the script, but are buried beneath an ineffectual setting; fortunately, their universal applicability allows the musical to be transplanted into a more relatable time period. When established during the American alternative rock movement of the 1990s, the musical invites contemporary audiences to think of rebellion as a psychological and behavioral matter, a form of personal motivation, and not simply the product of teenage angst. The heart of Spring Awakening ultimately lies in this deep, thematic resonance and restless spirit.