Deaf West's production of SPRING AWAKENING floored the critics when it premiered in California, prompting the Los Angeles Times to write, "It's hard to enumerate all the ways in which Deaf West's SPRING AWAKENING is so very, very good." Now this unapologetically brilliant new production is coming to New York.
When it debuted on Broadway, SPRING AWAKENING's raw and honest portrayal of youth in revolt shattered expectations of what a musical could do, earning it 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book (for writer, Steven Sater) and Best Score (for composer, Duncan Sheik). Deaf West's innovative new production takes this already revolutionary musical to electrifying new heights by choreographing sign language into the production, intensifying the rift between the lost and the longing teenagers and the adults who refuse to hear them. Directed by Michael Arden, Deaf West's SPRING AWAKENING is full of knockout performances, explosive music and soul-stirring emotion.
"Spring Awakening" puts such inclusivity to thematic use while keeping the show's rock-music energy high. For most of the show, the band remains integrated into the shadows of Dane Laffrey's industrial-looking set, whose steel walls and rolling stairs look more like a 20th-century power station than a German boys' school. But when necessary, the musicians aren't afraid to run out into the audience, who won't soon forget the sight of Matlin rocking an electric guitar in the boxed seats.
Arguably the strongest turn here is from Durant, whose Moritz is alternately prideful and meek, stoic and sweetly sensitive - in short, like every teenager you've ever met. But his voice counterpart, Boniello, falters as he strains to reach the high notes in "And Then There Were None" and "Don't Do Sadness." The latter, a thrashing cri de couer of a boy considering suicide, should be among the show's most powerful moments, but here falls flat. Elsewhere, Manheim - making a very impressive Broadway debut - neatly defines four different adult characters. But Matlin feels wasted, and never gets a scene worthy of her potentially volcanic talents. See this "Spring Awakening" anyway, because even a flawed performance of this great musical is still better than most of what's on Broadway right now; and because in a few instances - including the final exit of the teenage characters - Arden really has improved upon the original.
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