Jerehmy Seghers directed Spring Awakening, a Children’s Tragedy at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. I sketched a reading of Spring Awakening many months ago in the Broadway Across America offices. Much of the cast had changed since those initial readings. Sarah Villegas who had read the roll of Wendla Bergman, now had a roll in “9 Parts of Desire.” I am sure this conflict was the reason she no longer played this lead roll in Spring Awakening. At this rehearsal she sat right under the large oval shaped theater light. She laughed and applauded the work of her fellow actors.
There is now a musical version of this play but Jeremy went back to the original German translated script for this show. All of the sexual repression and the difficult transition from child to adult have strong relevance today. The play was written back in 1891 but remains very much relevant today. A scene where Melchior rapes Wendla in a hay loft is brutal and unexpected. In another scene Wendla asks a friend to hit her with a stick since her parents never beat her. I am reminded of a Eurythmics song that shots out “Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you.”
Unrequited love and uncertainty about sexual identity causes major tragic events to unfold with authority figures flapping their lips about moral order. Children are expected to discover their sexuality while blind folded.
