Review: Spring Awakening

THE JOY AND PAIN OF YOUTH

The multi-award-winning youth musical Spring Awakening is a peculiar phenomenon. It is strikingly advertised as a show that caused New York to go crazy a few years ago. Now the musical has been brought to the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre.

What does a play written by the German Frank Wedekind 115 years ago have to say to today’s young people? At least the strict framework within which young people in the late 1890s struggled towards adulthood. She and her awakening sexuality are controlled by her parents, school and church. Behind the veil of double standards and virtue, all kinds of things happened for which the young people paid the price. Shame and guilt fell on them

Musicals are associated with the attributes light-heartedness and entertaining, but this play does not shy away from topics such as suicide, incest, masturbation, extramarital sex, illegal abortion and domestic violence. Due to the harsh themes, the play has been banned several times.


Steven Sater’s text and Duncan Sheik’s music bring the performance closer to the present day. Rock-type music, energetic dances and songs bring the viewer into the air as if to breathe oxygen from the other side of life, which is becoming too heavy and stuffy. The stage scenery is also transformed into a modern one. Young people captivate with their skills and dedication.

It is in the songs that you can find the common things that are true for everyone in different eras. Young people no longer live in the same kind of ignorance as they did in 1891, but has the growth into adulthood become any easier? Are the expectations placed on young people any lower? Viewers of all ages can think about it. You can’t leave this performance with dry eyes.