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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Kids do the darnedest things

June 16, 2006 by Terry Teachout

Friday again, and today’s Wall Street Journal drama column reflects my sharply mixed feelings about Spring Awakening, the very explicit new musical version of Frank Wedekind’s famous 1891 play about teenage sexuality:

Steven Sater has compressed Wedekind’s three-act play into a tight two-act book that is surprisingly faithful to the original, though Mr. Sater’s adaptation is far more sentimental and (fortunately) rather less didactic. The action is set in provincial Germany circa 1890, but the songs are contemporary in style–often unprintably so–and the performers whip wireless mikes out of their pockets and are bathed in neon light whenever they start to sing. The point, I gather, is that nothing much has changed since 1890, and when it comes to puberty, that’s doubtless true enough. “Spring Awakening” is full of self-centered, solipsistic kids who think they’re both unique and misunderstood. I know I felt that way when I was 14.


Is “Spring Awakening” for you? Only if you warm to the idea of spending a whole evening wallowing in teen angst. It also depends on your tolerance for the kind of singer-songwriter pop that runs to languishing tunes and sensitive piano arpeggios. I find it cloying, but I’ll be the first to admit that Mr. Sater (who also wrote the lyrics) has used Duncan Sheik’s music to savvy dramatic effect, greatly aided by the fast-paced direction of Michael Mayer and the sharp performances of the ensemble cast….

My feelings about Neil LaBute’s Some Girl(s) were considerably more clear-cut:

I wanting to admire Neil LaBute, but he keeps writing plays like “Some Girl(s).” Mr. LaBute’s favorite subject is the way men mistreat women, and while he handles it with virtuosity–I can’t think of a more technically adroit playwright–his slickness almost always does him in….

No link, so get thee to a newsstand and pony up a dollar for today’s Journal, or be big and brave and go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you on-the-spot access to the full text of my review, plus many other worthy stories about art and its ancillary activites. (You can also read about money if so inclined.)

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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