Spring Awakening is a show that has it all: musical numbers, teenage sexual awakening, suicide, child abuse and teen pregnancy. As one cast member’s grandmother put it, it’s not “Oklahoma.”
The story features teenagers struggling with individual challenges that center on sexuality and the unknown. Not everyone makes it out intact — or alive — though there is a fair amount of humor along the way.
It may be a difficult story to watch and a difficult story to act, but the cast and crew of Arena Civic Theatre — the play opens in Orange on Friday — think it’s worth it.
Robert Hawes, 22, of Amherst, plays Melchior, the male lead in the character-rich story set in Germany at the turn of the last century.
“Some shows are really just entertainment … and it feels like this show really has a point; and even though it’s dark and heavy and sometimes really uncomfortable — it’s certainly uncomfortable for me in some places — it uses that ‘uncomfortability’ to get a point across,” Hawes said.
His character, to some degree, coerces a naive friend, Wendla, into having sex.
The danger presented by the gaps in Wendla’s understanding of human sexuality and procreation — gaps partly because of her mother’s reticence and discomfort on the topic — is a major theme of the musical.
Chloe Castro-Santos, 16, of Gill, plays Wendla, the female lead.
Castro-Santos said she begged her parents to let her do the show, which she sees as a rare depiction of young people as human beings rather than caricatures.
“I think it’s so awesome to have a musical that actually portrays young people as very mature — in a light that actually makes them seem intelligent,” she said. “People are so afraid of sexuality … so seeing it portrayed as maybe not the worst thing, if you have an idea what you’re doing, is something that I think is revolutionary about this show, and I think it’s really revolutionary for the area and for everyone.”
Tyler Conroy, 24, of Conway, plays Moritz, a somewhat frantic youth overburdened by change and grades. Like Castro-Santos, Conroy jumped at the play.
“What I love about the show is it’s everything that you went through at that age, when you were finding out what things were … and it just kind of shows you the behind-the-scenes on what people are going through at 15,” Conroy said.
Nothing the play deals with has stopped happening, he said.
The Arena Civic Theatre cast rehearsed last Thursday in the newly restored upstairs auditorium of the Orange Town Hall – it will be the show’s home for a six-day run.
Dressed in period costume, the 13-member cast began rehearsal with vocal exercises. One singer adjusted the collar of his tailcoat with the help of his smartphone screen.
One of the remarkable aspects of the show, as far as director and ACT President Megan Healey is concerned, is that the original material was written in Germany in 1891 and still feels relevant in the here and now.
Granted, it’s a rock-opera now, but Healey said the musical version hews very close to the banned-in-Germany original version. And it’s still controversial.
Healey said she watched people walk out during intermission the first time she saw it on Broadway. The high schools she approached, looking for a venue, wouldn’t rent out their auditoriums. Orange was a lucky find, she said.
But Arena Civic Theatre isn’t in it for shock value. Like every community theater director, Healey knows the “old chestnuts” — “The Lion King,” “Oklahoma,” etc. — are the safe bets financially, but Arena Civic Theatre wanted to put on something more than an evening’s diversion.
Healey said she and others involved hope the production stimulates conversation.
She said the first time she saw the musical, she was struck by how it might have provoked useful conversations with her father, mother, and stepmother, had they all seen it years earlier. When the rights became available, Arena Civic Theatre went for it.
“Just knowing that something like this exists, I thought it was important for this area — not Orange, but Western Massachusetts — to see it,” Healey said.
Underlining the point that this is a play about real problems, as much today as 125 years ago, the cast filled a comment jar with their emotional baggage. The anonymous comments decorate two large blackboard panels flanking the stage and will be moved elsewhere during the performance.
Struggles with depression are prominent.
“I really think there are a lot of issues that don’t get talked about between parents and kids, and maybe should be. And hopefully when you have good theater, hopefully it can start a conversation within a community, within a family,” said Brittany Hamilton of Greenfield, the show’s stage manager.
Domestic violence, homosexuality, sexual awakening, teen pregnancy and suicide are among the topics addressed in the musical. Hamilton, who happens to be a social worker outside of the theater, does not subscribe to the belief that not talking about things, like suicide, is the safest course.
“I think it’s important to have a conversation about the issues that are relevant to young people today, and it is a relevant issue in this community and in other communities in the state. I think it can get kind of dangerous when people tend not to talk about it, because people tend not to have support and don’t feel comfortable to reach out for support,” she said.
The show runs April 22, 23, 29 and 30 at 8 p.m. and April 24 and May 1 at 2 p.m. in the Ruth B. Smith Auditorium at the Orange Town Hall, 6 Prospect St. Tickets are $16 general admission, $13 for seniors and students. Tickets are available at the door or by calling to reserve them at (413) 233-4368 or visiting online at: www.arenacivictheatre.org
There is no youth ticket price — the show is not recommended for very young children, because of the mature themes and language. There is also no recommended age limit: Healey said it is up to parents and children to decide.