Review: 'Spring Awakening' by Broccoli Hall, Inc.

Broccoli Hall, Inc. is introducing a new look at the musical SPRING AWAKENING, the Tony Award-winning Broadway Musical, with book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik. This streamed production of the musical is co-produced by Broccoli Hall and Jake Egan O’Hara and features talent local to the Boston and New Hampshire areas.

SPRING AWAKENING is set in late 19th century Germany and tells the story of a group of teenagers discovering their sexuality. This wonderfully diverse company shares the musical through their own lens interweaving personal stories of discrimination, immigration, mental health, sexual identity and gender bias into their performances. In this unique production, cloth face masks are used as a modern metaphor for the themes of censorship, silence against knowledge and silence against citizenship.

People whose lives were dedicated to touching others, helping others to live through their artistic expression were faced with a new reality: To touch or be touched could mean to die...The first and highest priority for everyone involved in the creation of this incredible feat was ensuring the health and safety of our actors, technical, filming and creative team members who would be working in-person or in attendance for any amount of time at the congregate rehearsal and filming location.

This production was re-conceived and fully comprised of BIPOC, LGBTQ++, survivors and loud advocates of Emotional and Mental Health, as well as those living with the horrors of physical and sexual assault/harassment. This includes the humans working in positions from the very top of leadership to the designers, to the choreographers, to technical managers, right on through the cast members, and even into the costumes design.

From the production team: This telling, instead of ignoring performers’ race, sexuality, gender and life experiences in 2020, fully explores them as they merge with our story. The actor playing Wendla is a woman of mixed race, a Person of Color therefore Wendla herself is a mixed race Person of Color. With a Caucasian mother in 1890s Germany to navigate, Wendla’s questions about her origin and place in the world as a young woman take on a modern and immediate meaning. The questions of white privilege, social justice of censorship, gender inequality, segregation and censorship and equal rights to education, citizenship and freedom take prominence.

Over the crammed rehearsal process of just 6 days, all actors not only learned the show, and worked within both the restrictions and opportunities of the world’s current real reality, individually recorded in full their vocal tracks. During this time of social distancing, the production team chose to include with purpose both masks and social distancing as modern parallels to the themes and struggles of citizenship and recognition faced by the characters in the show.

To my mind, the inclusion of these restrictions appeared to be in alignment with the entire production, and did not detract from the show’s purpose. The function of wearing or removing a mask took on different levels of meaning and finely wove the present to the past; from the sight of the first cloth masks, they did not distract and became a part of the actor’s period costume. Of course, it made it more challenging for the actors to convey their emotions with only their eyes (and bodies) but convey them they did. Unfortunately, actors not being able to touch each other made some of the plot points a bit difficult to follow, especially for anyone not familiar with the story.

Jake Egan O’Hara was both the director and producer of this ambitious work; he also appeared as Hanschen. Mr. Egan went to extraordinary lengths to keep the cast and crew as safe as possible while retaining his artistic vision of the musical. As a playwright, Jake’s first full-length musical, entitled Never Land (Music and Lyrics by Graham Peck and John Eldridge) received its first public production in January, 2019. The team hopes to further develop the piece for Boston and New York audiences.

With endless gratitude, heartfelt awe and commanding respect to each and every human and artist who has joined this journey — Your resilience, passion, and incredible strength and trust are gifts I will never forget nor will I ever find adequate words with which to thank you properly. -Director/Producer Jake Egan

The cast members include Alice Ripley* (NEXT TO NORMAL, TOMMY, SUNSET BOULEVARD, SIDE SHOW) and Beth Malone* ( FUN HOME) in the roles of “Adult Woman” Ms. Malone is credited as Fraulein Knuppeldick, Frau Bissell, and Fraulein Grossebustenhalter. Both gave wonderful performances from a separate location that were worked into the scene on the stage.

The lovely Victoria Rae Gill leads the cast in the important role of the innocent Wendla. She opens the show with a lovely solo of “Mama Who Bore Me” in a beautifully lit scene. John Arthur Greene* (B’way revival WEST SIDE STORY) was impressive in the role of “Melchior;” what a voice! Rene Pfister took on all of the roles traditionally played by “Adult Man.”

Devon Stone* (nat’l tour of SPRING AWAKENING) was memorable as Georg, and Billy Luce Jr. was perfectly cast in the role of Moritz. Tyla Collier* (off B’way SISTAS) appeared as “Anna”. Katie Harwood took on the role of Ilse and Samantha Searles played the role of Thea. Michael Buck played the teenaged boy Otto and Hofstra grad Michael DeRosa took on the role of Ernst.

AshleyRachel Bertone was the choreographer for “Mirror Blue Night;” Joy Clark was associate choreographer for this number. Marie Arnold did the choreography for “Totally Fucked.” Carli Elise Hamilton, who did very well as the abused teen Martha, was also the dance captain and designed the choreography for “Bitch of Living.”

Leah Bloom served as the director of photography. Kelli Loughlin did some additional/associate photography. The final scene, which was shot outdoors, was very impressive. Daniel Clawson was in charge of lighting production and was the design consultant and technical theatre advisor.

Kudos to Equity Stage Manager Elizabeth Yvette Ramirez* for what must have been an exceedingly difficult job. Miranda McLean was Asst. Stage Manager.

The technical aspects varied throughout the stream. The stream started with fits and starts on my desktop, but improved quickly; then towards the end simply stalled completely at a few points. Some lines of actors in different locations could be heard arriving to their scene partner, but that was the exception and not the rule. The pre recording of the musical numbers did not bother me, since most of them were filmed with the actors wearing masks. The recording of many of the vocal performances was of high quality, as was the capturing of the majority of the spoken lines. Some interactions were a bit stilted, but many flowed in almost real time.

The most impressive of the editing was superimposing the performances of the dancers on top of each other, giving the actors an almost ghostlike quality. Other times the face of an actor in another location was superimposed into the shot of another actor, almost putting them together on the stage. This is a technique I would appreciate in other online productions.

Tickets for all performances are $38.00 (plus applicable fees) per device and can be purchased at wordofourbodies.com. This production is produced in partnership with MTI. https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/42269

*Members, Actors Equity Association (AEA)

Nancy Sasso Janis has been writing theatre reviews since 2012 as a way to support local theatre venues. She posts reviews of well over 100 productions in a normal year. In 2016, she became a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle. She continues to contribute theatre news, previews, and audition notices to local Patch sites. Reviews of all levels of theatrical productions are posted on Naugatuck Patch and the Patch sites closest to the venue. Follow the reviewer on her Facebook pages Nancy Sasso Janis: Theatre Reviewer and on Twitter @nancysjanis417 Check out the CCC Facebook page.