Staging Frank Wedekind’s Frühlings Erwachen for the audience of 2008 is not without its challenges. The immediacy with which the play exposed institutionalised repression in the late nineteenth century, daring to deviate from the dating vogue of Naturalism, is difficult to reproduce on the stage of Oxford’s Moser Theatre.
No sooner does this thought ferment in the audience’s mind than the play’s guide (a highly convincing Lucy Murphy) struts on stage and puts any fears at bay. With an effortless command of German, this scarlet figure flaunts the youthful freedoms of which the play’s teenagers are deprived – or so she thinks. The addition to Wedekind’s original epitomises the confidence with which this play has been approached: a confidence resounding through some first-rate individual performances. The exchanges between Peter Berger (Melchior) and Sam Capener (Moritz) are outstanding, the latter powerfully embodying tensions of pubescence in a society defined by delusion and constant euphemising. Martha Rowsell (Wendla) and Ellie Buchdahl (Ilse), among others, play its victims and outsiders with poignancy and, at times, dark humour.
And while the whiff of ‘adaptation’ may invite cynicism among purist Germanisten, its new-found pace loses nothing of the structure and complexity of the original. It is thoroughly recommended.
No sooner does this thought ferment in the audience’s mind than the play’s guide (a highly convincing Lucy Murphy) struts on stage and puts any fears at bay. With an effortless command of German, this scarlet figure flaunts the youthful freedoms of which the play’s teenagers are deprived – or so she thinks. The addition to Wedekind’s original epitomises the confidence with which this play has been approached: a confidence resounding through some first-rate individual performances. The exchanges between Peter Berger (Melchior) and Sam Capener (Moritz) are outstanding, the latter powerfully embodying tensions of pubescence in a society defined by delusion and constant euphemising. Martha Rowsell (Wendla) and Ellie Buchdahl (Ilse), among others, play its victims and outsiders with poignancy and, at times, dark humour.
And while the whiff of ‘adaptation’ may invite cynicism among purist Germanisten, its new-found pace loses nothing of the structure and complexity of the original. It is thoroughly recommended.