Category: Frank Wedekind

Sydney Theatre Company present SPRING AWAKENING. A New Musical. Book and Lyrics by Steven Sater. Music by Duncan Sheik. Based on the original play by Frank Wedekind. At the Sydney Theatre. Oh, look……Oh, boy…..Oh, wow…..Oh, woe…… I deliberately waited until late in the season (the last week, in fact) before attending this production. Neither the press reviews or the “word of mouth” was particularly encouraging about this production. [Less than half a theatre full.] I knew that the company were young and mostly inexperienced and a big musical (I have seen it in New York) needs proper time to find…

From the Director’s Notes: “I put on classics as a means of expressing the timelessness of particular aspects of the human condition.” Further: “My job, as I see it, both in adaptation and direction is to strip away anything that gets in the way of this realization – anything that no longer speaks to us today – then build up a structure that facilitates the audience’s enjoyment and understanding of a piece that may in its original form have seemed antiquated” – Simon Stone The Set design (Adam Gardnir) consists of what I took to be 9 chicken coops/cages. In…