Paradok - Spring Awakening

Wednesday 19 March - By Juliette Pepin for The Student

The energy of performers and the audience alike was electric on the sold-out closing night of Paradok’s production of hit Broadway musical Spring Awakening, performed at Bedlam from the 12-15 of March. The performance paralleled the original Broadway production, and was both comedic and tragic in its cautioning of the dangers of denying teenagers the freedom of expression.

Despite technical difficulties delaying the show, the performance was seamless, with the actors, backstage crew and band working in flawless harmony. What is a demanding musical with a run time of two hours, was made to look effortless.

Hattie Sumners as Wendla and Daniel Fischer as Melchior were powerful leads: in “The World of Your Body” they mirrored and matched each other’s every movement, perfectly in sync. Sumners’ voice captivated the audience from her first number “Mama Who Bore Me.” Her performance allowed the audience to focus on Wendla’s character and fate, not solely in relation to Melchior. Tilda Dyer and Gemima Iseka-Bekano’s duet in “The Dark I Know Well” (portraying Martha and Ilse respectively) showcased their vocal talent, in a moment of solidarity and community between teenagers in the face of trauma. Shaun Hamilton as Moritz had the audience roaring with laughter in one moment, and overcome with waves of grief in the next. He conveyed the haunted depth behind Moritz as he transforms from having a largely comedic function, to being a central example of the consequences of parental control and oppression.

Ava Tumblety’s set design was simple but powerful in conveying the divide between teenagers and parental authority. The curtain backdrop of a veil manipulated the size of the Bedlam stage to juxtapose simultaneous scenes. The veil created a divide between the teenagers at the front and parents or authorities at the back, acting as a wall symbolising censorship and control imposed by parents. Intricate details such as the Latin words projected during “The Bitch of Living” amplified the fierce rejection of authority and the archaic teaching system imposed upon the teenagers. From the gothic punk channelled through Melchior to the fairytale innocence in Ilse’s clothing, the modern take on costumes (by Eliza Beecroft and Megan Fourie) instructed the audience not to leave the cautionary tale of the play in 19th century Germany but bring it to the present day.

The production, directed by Rue Richardson and Jane Morgan, exceeds expectations of student theatre, with a cast that radiated talent. In an age where young people are continually infantilised, and books banned and curriculums controlled, this homage to the original Broadway production is as relevant as ever.

Wednesday 12 March - By Susan Singfield for Bouquets & Brickbats

It’s mind-blowing to think that Frank Wedekind’s Frühlings Erwachen was written in 1890, when Kaiser Wilhelm II ruled the Deutsches Reich, Queen Victoria was on the British throne and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (nope, me neither) was our PM. In a world where women weren’t even allowed to show their ankles, it’s not surprising that it was sixteen years before someone dared to stage this controversial exposé of the dangers of repression, with its bold depictions of teenage sexuality – not to mention rape, suicide and abuse.

Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s musical adaptation premiered on Broadway in 2006, exactly one hundred years after Wedekind’s play finally opened at Berlin’s Deutsches Theater, under the direction of Max Reinhardt. Despite the addition of some banging rock songs and more than a few profanities, this modern version actually pulls more punches than the original, most notably by omitting the rape and softening the ending. Nonetheless, it still has the capacity to shock, and to remind us that we make sex dangerous by hiding it, by making it taboo.

Set in 19th century Germany, this is a story about a group of young people coming of age under the stifling weight of moral expectations. Wendla (Hattie Sumners) asks how babies are made. Scandalised, her mother (Sophie Davis, who plays all the adult women) first shouts and then equivocates, condemning her daughter to an ignorance which will have severe consequences. Meanwhile, Moritz (Shaun Hamilton) is struggling to keep up with his schoolwork, and fear of failure takes him to a devastating place. Melchior (Daniel Fischer) seems stronger than the others: thanks to a combination of intelligence and a liberal mother, he’s more knowledgeable than his friends, and therefore better equipped to cope with life. Still, the authoritarian regimes of school and church soon drag him under too; no one is safe in this society.

Theatre Paradok’s production succeeds in conveying those most fundamental of teenage emotions: exuberance and despair (I’m guessing the student cast don’t have to dig that deeply to remember how raw and overwhelming those feelings can be). Sheik’s eclectic soundtrack is beautifully interpreted by musical directors Nonny Jones and Ruairidh Nicholson, the choral numbers being particularly impressive. The live band – hidden in the wings – are terrific, and plaintive solos by Sumners, Gemima Iseka-Bekano (Ilse) and Hamilton evoke some strong responses.

The show’s aesthetic is great. I love the androgyny of the costumes, with feminine dresses worn over masculine suits; the queer coding is fabulously done. The set is simple but very effective: items of underwear are stapled to a curtain framing a large gauze backdrop, onto which short animations and live videos are projected, creating an ethereal doubling effect and amplifying the characters’ emotions.

Directors Rue Richardson and Jane Morgan manage their large cast with aplomb. The play is dynamic and visually very appealing, from the arresting choreography (by Františka Vosátková, along with Richardson, Morgan and Andrea Adriana Prawono) to the boisterous shenanigans of the teenage boys. The gauze curtain makes metaphors literal: dead characters appear from ‘beyond the veil’, while ‘a veil is drawn’ over Wendla and Melchior’s lovemaking. However, Ernst (Michael Butler) and Hänschen (Max Middleton)’s homosexual relationship is placed boldly centre-stage – perhaps a subtle nod to the idea that some things shouldn’t be re-closeted.

I do have one criticism, and it’s the emergency exit door, stage left, which is open to the elements. Bedlam is a chilly venue at the best of times; tonight, with an outside temperature of 1°C, I could do without sitting in a freezing draught. And it’s not just the cold that’s a problem, there’s the noise of the city too: traffic and sirens and people passing by, all making a claim on my attention. I can see that the options are limited by the need to house the band, but – for the sake of one entrance and one exit – it’s surely not worth making the audience so uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, this production of Spring Awakening is a triumph: a lively, thought-provoking piece of theatre, as relevant now as it was more than a century ago.

Wednesday 02 April - By Jordan S Daniel for The Skinny

Theatre Paradok’s rendition of the hit teen musical Spring Awakening breathes fresh life into the show

As I arrive at Bedlam Theatre, the energy of empowered young voices – excited to see the show, talking about their exams – capture the essence of Spring Awakening’s message of teenage angst and new beginnings. I hear a young person, likely 10 years younger than myself, tell their friend “it’s all about flowers right now,” which feels apt as we transition into spring and a new year.

I am greeted by the wonderful vocals of Hattie Summers (Wendla), who manages to fuse Florence Welch’s tones with Alanis Morrisette’s fiery passion. Summers’ performance allows the audience into Wendla’s world of puberty, daring to ask the questions of what it means to be a young woman in this world – and what is real love? As the cast take us on the journey of teenage adolescence, anger and betrayal, we find through their performances of ‘The Bitch of Living’, ‘The Dark I Know Well’ and ‘Touch Me’ that there are young, fragile and frightened children who need answers at the core of this show.

In our uneasy and regressive political climate, the show’s conversations around religious oppression and abortion strike a chord – as do uncomfortable experiences of abuse by caregivers and those closest to us. We see queer joy celebrated through Hanschen and Ernst’s love affair, which is greeted with applause from the audience, but the show is stolen by Shaun Hamilton (Moritz) and Gemima Iseka-Bekano (Ilse). Both manage to excel vocally and exemplify raw emotion in their performances; Hamilton as a young man who takes his own life, and Iseka-Bekano as a young woman who is recovering from abuse.

There are interesting design choices, featuring rehearsed performances on a sheet behind the performers conveying a concert feel, and there’s an intimate feel to the choreography. At points, the sound quality unfortunately dips, but given the overall energy in the room and the magnetic response from the crowd, I can tell spring is truly here.

Thursday 03 April - By Bella for At Least Afloat

I would just like to celebrate that this is the first review I have been asked, and have not volunteered, to make. The email from the Co-Producer addressed to “the Editor” flew into my inbox as a welcome homing pigeon, a breath of the Spring of a new profession – that of the critic. I really don’t mind if I do. Watching plays and thinking about them is probably my favourite activity in the world.

Thus – the somewhat harried for slings-and-arrows reasons – I strode into Bedlam, armed this time with a notepad and blazer, and the ability to say “I am the Press”.

Reader, I needed but my youthful sensibilities (and my slings-and-arrows) to appreciate the relevance of this play. The fresh, wounding relevance of this play.

Spring Awakening, for the green and uninitiated (as I was), is is a folk+alt-rock musical by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, based off the play of the same name by Frank Wedekind that was published in 1891. As the title suggests, it is about youth and nascence.

I will confess I sat through the first number “Mama Who Bore Me” with skepticism. The predominant theme in dance, as I found with later songs, were hands. Reaching, repressed hands; out-of-sync, jarring-with-my-4-years-in-competitive-dance hands. Ooooooooooh… No, but, sit tight. Don’t dismiss the bizarre and unconvincing movement yet. The awkwardness of the dancing, the lack of synchronicity in coordination could be considered a metaphor for adolescent awkwardness. As can the lack of conviction in swearing (“Totally F*cked”), fresh, new, and powerful in the mouth of a child embracing their adulthood… Disjointed, uncertain. No, at times it felt like the mainly twenty-something-year-old cast disconnected with increasingly distant memories of a pubescence buried. But, my word, what a play!

See it as a metaphor. Of course, our mouths are dirty, as are increasingly less our minds, through our enfranchised bodies of several years. We are educated and experienced. We are more free. Ours is not exactly the situation, in age or in historical context, of the 19th century personae. But we still aren’t completely free. We still have much to desire. We still are at the mercy of adults (“proper” adults, in our case, with financial autonomy and political sway).

(Hello, Bella, how is Edinburgh student life treating you?)

It’s an exceedingly powerful text and score, which does make it difficult to extricate how well it was delivered.

The set, initially, seems simple – There is a screen of white chiffon at the back, two dark legs at the side, a line of seven chairs on stage. The chiffon is used for projection of the soloists, concert-style; surveillance-style. The legs, it turns out, are not simply blackcloth, but school ties, red satin, bras, tous entassés. Then we see people walk behind the chiffon. Talk behind the chiffon. Make sweet, illicit love behind the chiffon. The chairs are, of course, chairs. They are a classroom. They are a bridge over a bubbling, vernal brook. They are a bridge between the respectable world and reformatory. They are a church pew. The chiffon becomes the veil between two worlds – the seen and unseen, the permitted and the forbidden, the construed and the truth. Oh! And I am in raptures over the final detail I noticed – whitewash. Graffiti. Projected onto the chiffon. The wavy patterns almost suggesting the two-fingers-up-to-the-Church that Michelangelo hid in plain sight in the Sistine Chapel: The shape of Adam and God – the brain. I am allowed to let my artistic, intellectual mind wonder.

You know what? Yes. “I Believe”, in the words of the ephemeral Wendla Bergmann, played by Hattie Summers. Increasingly, I am drawn in. Daniel Fischer has a voice which catches in your chest, in a good way, as do his words (“Shame is the product of nothing but our education.”). In Melchior Gabor, he embodies the mind that sees but finds that sight mismatches with hearing. The Adults, Sophie Davis and Ben Urbach, purposely nameless and universal, portrayed each of their authoritative roles, as parents and teachers, with a violence, physical or moral, stemming from a very palpable fear. Not even an ignorance – a blindness through fear. Through love primarily and often, but ultimately through fear. None of us ever grow up – we merely learn to hold the reins with greater force. That’s not necessarily a good thing.

Shaun Hamilton’s pathos slammed my eyes shut during Moritz Stiefel’s suicide, as did it draw tears. Gemima Iseka-Bekano as Ilse is still as brilliant as she was when I first saw her in EUSOG’s HMS Pinafore in 2023, or even coming into fuller bloom of her talents. I will not be surprised to find her as a mighty oak in the West End in the coming decade, if that is what she wishes. I really cannot criticise anything about any of the actors, beyond their troupe dancing, occasionally their singing (due to the complexities of the songs), and perhaps their ability to portray 15-year-olds with sufficient conviction, but the order was towering, for six months rehearsals beside degrees (and slings-and-arrows). In this case, as musical theatre, the show is certainly not to professional standard, but it’s pretty d*mn close. As experimental theatre, as a play, it’s excellent. Everything that could be done with thought, was done with intricate, incisive thought, for this is a play of symbolism. From the choreographed clock hands, to the broken rosary in the switch scene, to the individualised grunge costumes (made possible in collaboration with Glasgow’s House of Black), each pointing to a different personality, each with a common theme. Also important to mention is the choice to work with University of Edinburgh sexual consent and safety campaign Sex? On Campus!.

The librettist and composer had big shoes to fill, and so did the production team and crew, and so do the actors. Upon further reflection, they did so admirably. “Listen to what’s in the heart of a child, A song so big in one so small.”

A song of trying to find our way in the world, particularly pressing for me who is finishing their undergraduate degree and knows not whether to stay for a Master’s at this fraught University of ours. Let us sing, O ye who hold the (purse) strings, who decide our future with your fearful and greedy actions. Do you hear us?

“Are we so afraid of the truth that we will join the ranks of cowards and fools?”

Now, I would say get tickets for the show whilst you still can, but they sold out ere I could pick up my pen. And deservedly.

Nonetheless, for form’s sake (and if you are exceedingly lucky)