What Happens When Adults Don’t Work Together Honestly, Constructively, and In Good Faith?

Wouldn’t it be nice if all children came pre-loaded with facts about sexuality, gender, rape, abortion, suicide, religion, faith, and other related topics? Then we wouldn’t have to worry about what to teach, when to teach it, where to teach it, how to teach it, who should teach it.

Alas, instead, it’s left up to the adults–parents, teachers, guardians, and other authority figures–to work together honestly, constructively, and in good faith, to make sure children have the information they need when they need it. Sometimes that happens. But when it doesn’t?

Welcome to Spring Awakening, a musical being offered by Madison Lyric Stage, running Friday, July 21 to Sunday, July 30 at the Deacon John Grave House, 581 Boston Post Road, Madison. The musical is drawn from an 1891 play by Frank Wedekind, Frühlings Erwachen, or The Awakening of Spring. Written in 1891, the play was so controversial it was initially outlawed, and the playwright condemned, in the harshest terms, for questioning authority and revealing established orthodoxy as nothing more than window dressing for hypocrisy. It was not performed until 1906 and didn’t see its second performance until 1917. Both the original play and the musical retain their power to make audience members intensely uncomfortable.

So why pay good money for something that might make you itch?

On The Value Of Being Uncomfortable

“I feel like nothing ever changes, nothing ever develops or grows, unless you are uncomfortable,” says Rebecca Tobin, the actor who will play Venla in the upcoming production. The scenarios offered in the musical are, unfortunately, far from being far-fetched. “I’ve had people around me get pregnant, commit suicide, all of these difficult things.”

Keegan Sells, who will play Melchior, says, “We owe it to the young people of the community to display how they feel on stage. We owe it to our younger selves to share our feelings. And, at the same time, we have to share it with the older people, parents and grandparents, and politicians.”

Seth Allen, who plays Moritz, agrees. “It’s a very personal play.”

Marc Deaton, artistic director of Madison Lyric Stage, says the play is dark and controversial and, when he first saw it more than a decade ago, “I didn’t like it at all. I wanted to be released before intermission. I just found it very abrasive,” he says. “I just didn’t care for it.”

Since then, he’s come to realize that the story upon which the musical is based is special in part for its abrasive quality, and increasingly, for its relevance as well. Deaton has become a devotee of Wedekind’s work. Based on his knowledge of the original play, Deaton felt like he could do the story justice. “The original play was amazing when it was done and even now,” he says.

He wondered whether it would be a good fit for his audience here on the shoreline and decided it was. “What’s really interesting about Spring Awakening is that it’s still considered controversial and quite recently, even, I had a little go-to with some people about its, ah, content.”

It’s also true, he says, that the subjects tackled in the musical are no more or less controversial than much of what is offered, say, on Netflix. He eventually decided the musical would be ideal for his community of subscribers, most of whom value Madison Lyric Stage for its ability to entertain while also casting light on complicated topics.

His next question was how to assemble an appropriate cast. The characters are teenagers, but the subject matter is so demanding that it is more appropriate to cast older actors. “I have a few of what I like to call my ‘32-year-olds that I could put in pigtails,’” he says. And Deaton admits to his reputation of being exacting as a director, even to the point of adjusting vowels and fine-tuning vibratos. He needed young professionals with experience. He put out a call for auditions and was thrilled with the result. “I was absolutely bowled over by the talent.”

Committed To The Task

It’s clear this talented cast is committed to doing justice to the musical and everything it contains, from the sublime to the heartbreaking. Allen and Sells, both originally from Ohio, and Tobin, originally from Durham, Connecticut, are in their early 20s, an advantage, they say, when it comes to channeling the experiences of adolescent characters dealing with the confusion of young bodies developing physically and hormonally more quickly than their impulse control.

Tobin says her hometown of Durham is characterized by conservative values and that the schools she attended did a decent job with basic sex education, lessons that were supplemented with discussions she had with her family. “Both my parents are doctors,” she says. “They taught me things very early on. And my conservative down did an OK job with sex education. So I’m grateful for that.”

Still, she worries about the erosion of abortion rights nationally and an increase in the number of politicians pontificating and fundraising at the expense of women’s bodies. “As a young woman, seeing all of these changes, made by men, in my world, affecting myself and others is definitely terrifying,” she says. She adds it can be easy for young women to feel like their voices are not valued. “So the show definitely explores a lot of that. I think people are afraid to talk about these things and admit it’s an issue. This gives teenagers a voice in a way. We’re showing the things that all kids are struggling with on a day-to-day basis, and it’s giving them a way to express that.”

Following a recent rehearsal, Sells says he was talking with another cast member about the naivete that often characterizes the early stages of adolescence. “Children do things,” he says. “And they either don’t know what they are doing or they don’t fully think about the effect it will have on people…they are incapable of thinking that far out about all the effects it might have. Their brains aren’t fully developed. So their decisions are so influenced by emotions and hormones, more than rationale and logic.”

Feelings And Facts

Even a little bit of education and adult guidance can go a long way to mitigate some of that, he says , but he remembers that in his Ohio town, students received very little useful information about all the changes they were going through following puberty. His parents were willing to talk with him about what he was going through, but he says he had friends who did not have that guidance at home. “After a while, that can become super harmful and a strangling environment. It is terrifying to think a problem in Germany in the 1800s is, in some places, is just as prevalent now as it was back then.”

Allen agrees. His grandparents were moonshiners from Kentucky. His parents moved to a small town in southern Ohio. Neither one of them was able to graduate from high school. Allen went to an extremely conservative high school where students received lessons in shame rather than sex education. “My friends would get in trouble for wearing Pride items,” he says. “It was really, really bad. And my parents, you know, they didn’t know any more than I did. My mom finished ninth grade, and my dad finished eighth grade. I found out through friends, through the internet, things I should not have had to find out that way.”

But, as a curious 14-year-old, he felt driven to solve the puzzle of what was happening to him and his friends. At the same time, his parents wanted a better life for him and pushed him hard to succeed in school. Stress and confusion morphed into severe anxiety and depression. “I battled that,” he says. “Thank God I am still here. But I don’t have to pull very far to understand what these characters might have been feeling.”

Allen says since then, he’s gotten better at managing the forces of anxiety and depression. “I’ve figured out my feelings and more, and I’ve become more stable, thank goodness. But every time I read that script, I’m just like, oh, yeah. This show feels very real.”

All three agreed that it’s a gift to be able to offer this story and try to connect with people on a feeling level rather than just throwing facts at people.

“I’m actually an extremely logical person. I love facts,” says Allen. At one point, he aspired to be a chemistry and pre-med major. He would butt heads with his dad, debate him, and was never able to change his dad’s mind with facts and figures.

“So I did a show called Next to Normal [which tackles issues of mental health] at one point, and then I also did Spring Awakening,” he says. “And he came to see both of those shows.” In his earlier production of Spring Awakening, Allen played Hanschen. “I was a gay man. And that was my first time having that experience on stage,” Allen says. “And my dad came to see me, and he was like, ‘I actually love that,’ He, like, thought it was great. And after that point, he came a long way. And, yeah, it was really, really touching.”

Allen remains convinced of the power of storytelling and theater to transform understanding.

“Especially today, a lot of people live in echo chambers. They like what they like; they see what they see; they believe what they want to,” he says. “But when you put something that is make-believe in front of them, it hits them in a way that, you know, real life and their experiences aren’t going to affect them. They start to think with their hearts.”

Tickets for Spring Awakening, which will be performed in an enclosed tent on the grounds of the historic Deacon John Grave House, 581 Boston Post Road, Madison, can be purchased by visiting www.madisonlyricstage.org, or by calling 203-215-6329. Show times are Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m..

If you’re thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, the Lifeline network is available 24/7 across the United States. Call or text 988. Or visit www.988lifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now. Help is always available.