Spring Awakening (play)

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For the musical, see Spring Awakening (musical)

Scene from the play

Spring's Awakening (German: Frühlings Erwachen) is Frank Wedekind's first play. It was written from autumn 1890 to Easter in 1891, and was first performed on the 20th November 1906 in the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, under the direction of Max Reinhardt. It was first played in English in 1917.

The play focuses on the budding sexual maturity of youths in what Wedekind considered to be a sexually repressed society at the time. Due to the nature of its content, the play was frequently banned. The 1917 performance was almost shut down due to the New York City Commissioner of Licenses claiming the play was pornographic. An injunction by the Supreme Court allowed the play to go on, but it failed after a single performance.

A musical interpretation of the play with the same title opened Off Broadway in 2006 and subsequently moved to Broadway, later to receive 11 Tony Nominations, winning 8 of them, including Best Musical.

[edit] Characters

Melchior Gabor: A 14-year-old boy. Melchior is an atheist, who unlike the other children, knows the truth about sexual reproduction. He writes his best friend Moritz an essay about sexual intercourse, which gets him expelled from school, after the suicide of his friend. His parents send him to a reformatory after his father discovers he had sexual intercourse with Wendla.

Wendla Bergmann: A girl, who turns 14 at the beginning of the play. In the second act of the play, she has sexual intercourse with Melchior without the knowledge of reproduction. She ends up getting pregnant by him. She dies from botched abortion pills given to her, arranged by her mother and a midwife who lives across the street from the family home.

Moritz Stiefel: Melchior's best friend, and a student traumatized by puberty. At the beginning of the play, he passes the midterm. However, in the end, Moritz is unable to cope with his schoolwork, and commits suicide.

Ilse: A childhood friend of Moritz, Melchior and Wendla. She ran away from home to live a Bohemian life as a model and lover of various painters. Ilse only appears in two scenes throughout the show, and is the last person Moritz speaks to before he commits suicide, but she does find the gun he used and hides it.

Hanschen (Hänschen) and Ernst: Two friends and classmates of Melchior and Moritz, who discover they are gay. Towards the end of the play, they confess their love for one another.

Otto, Georg, and Robert: Friends of Melchior and Moritz, who attend school with them.

Thea and Martha: The friends of Wendla. Martha is abused by her mother and father.

Frau Bergmann: Wendla's mother.

Frau Gabor: Melchior's mother, who pens a suggestively seductive letter to Moritz to show her support of his studies.

Herr Gabor: Melchior's father.

Sonnenstich: The school headmaster.

Knuppeldick, Zungenschlag, Fliegentod, Hungergurt: Teachers at Melchior's school.

Pastor Kahlbauch: The town's religious leader, who leads the sermon at Moritz's funeral.

The Masked Man: a mysterious, fate-like stranger who appears in the final scene of the play to offer Melchior hope for redemption. Possibly the playwright himself coming to save Melchior from death.