CityLife

Spring Awakening

TEENAGE angst and young life crises tend to be presented as a modern phenomenon; emotion spurred by too much rock'n'roll and cheap alcohol.

It is, therefore, reassuring when we find out that it is not.

Coming age has never been straight forward, as demonstrated by Frank Wedekind’s tale of youthful tragedy, in which the main characters battle against the odds to cope with the tribulations of their adolescent transition into adulthood.

If the success of a play is measured by its ability to convey a story’s meaning and depth, then this performance nailed it.

There were some technical hitches and, perhaps at time, the performers could appear slightly hollow, however, there were also moments when the same characters would draw you deep into their darkly comic laments.

The poignance of the play’s moral lesson is a great example of how a story, despite belonging in a different age, can develop and grow in relevance.

It was like a century old Skins, or rather Dawson’s Creek, with the naivety of childhood still constraining the lives of the protagonists, as they get swept along by the torrent of self-discovery and curiosity, of a life hidden from them by society.

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