Review: Spring Awakening

Spring wakes you up

The package includes almost all the things that upset young people: sexual awakening, falling in love, illicit sex, masturbation, incest, suicide, double standards, teenage pregnancies, homosexuality and abortion.

But when all this is served up with excellent acting, good music and skillful direction, the end result is an unusually enjoyable rock musical.

Spring Awakening, brought to the big stage of the Helsinki City Theatre, is a surprise. Frank Wedekind’s play Frühlingserwachen, published in Germany in 1891, caused a huge scandal at the time, and the play was banned for decades. It’s easy to see why. In an era when the stork brought babies and sex was only a nasty duty of wives, Wedekind must have been a horror brat.

The musical, based on Wedekind’s text, premiered on Broadway in 2006, and had its European premiere in London this week.


The musical, directed by Neil Hardwick and translated into Finnish by Sami Parkkinen, features 19 mostly young actors. Their youth, enthusiasm and sincerity make the musical believable and the emotions recognizable, for people of all ages.

The City Theatre does not recommend the performance for children under the age of 15 or sensitive adults, but it could be said more honestly. If you can’t stand to watch masturbation under your shirt, you shouldn’t bother in the stands. A teenager, on the other hand, gets a good basis for discussions at the kitchen table from the play – if only the parents can stand it.