REVIEW: Spring Awakening (Maryland Theatre Collective)

I’m getting a lot of deja-vu right now.

It’s mid-July, and I just saw a production of Spring Awakening that was staged in the black box of a high school campus in a suburb of a major Mid-Atlantic city, with a passionate cast of current university students (or recent grads). In Awakening fashion, the set evokes a gothic church and the choreography relies a lot on chairs. The initials of the companies are even the same: MTC.

But this time I’m not talking about DC’s Monumental Theatre Company or their great production last summer; instead it’s Baltimore’s turn, via the Brooklyn Park-based Maryland Theatre Collective. Having grown up less than five miles from their space at the Chesapeake Arts Center, I was glad to check out an upstart company in their second season in my old neck of the woods.

Book/Music

It would be easy to leave this section unchanged from last year’s review, but I think the piece has grown on me, slightly. To broadly summarize, Spring Awakening deals with group of pubescents in 1880’s Germany who struggle with their hormonal maturity, an oppressive adult class, and the overall “bitch of living”. In the 5/10 I gave it, I accused the book of being soggy and predictable despite an explosive score. In the year since, the plot has evolved to me from “kind of odd” to a melancholic protest whose greatest folly is less of its strangeness and more of its stuffed foci. (I appreciate the score more, too, but only in the sense that more songs than just “Totally Fucked” comes on my Spotify with regularity.) The A-plot of Melchior and Wendla sees most of the development, and to balance it a smattering of other, shallower relationships take shape; perhaps it depends on the vibes of the production, but this one did not provide enough emotional liquidity with them to balance. 6/10

Acting

The primary cast is capable, if not misplaced, but the ensemble shines. Their dancing skills and peripheral energy place a lot of heart and soul where it wasn’t totally needed, but very welcomed, and picks up where I found some of the lead performances dropped. Andrew Limansky‘s turn as Melchior (the crooning heartthrob of the musical) is cold and cynical, like an atheistic redditor instead of a charismatic, chipped-shoulder youth revolutionary. (Ironically, I thought the spirit he brought would be great for a Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.) In the other direction, I found Max Ryon’s interpretation of Moritz to be well-founded but frequently over-acted. In the middle are Wendla (Sophie Snider) and Ilse (Frankie Marsh), who each have a great voice and a greater stage presence as the rightfully frustrated representations of the Plight of the Girl. 5/10

Production

Tommy Malek energetically directs and choreographs the piece, with mixed results; but there is certainly a vision that is accomplished. For starters, larger numbers and asides often utilize in-hand microphones, which I thought was a fun, concert-like storytelling device to evoke a youthful desire to amplify your voice (there’s even a moment involving them in Act II as a hilarious fourth-wall breaker.) The raucous chair-based choreography is positively jolting, and launches the cast into every corner of the stage. Yet, as entertaining as it is on the surface, I noticed several near-misses or minor contact collisions with props, the walls, and even other castmates that could have ended poorly if not for a sudden, seemingly un-accounted-for adjustment. The solemn surrounds by James V. Raymond are jaggedly detailed, but I was disappointed by a lack of comparably illustrative lighting to match. Rachel Sandler’s music direction was superb, though; in making the score noticeably more grungy, it gives the performers room to be looser with it and provides a satisfying edge to the experience, culminating in the ever-exciting “Totally Fucked” 11-o-clock number. 6/10

Viz

A tale of two representations: for a newer company, their online presence is active and engaging. The pre-show display is luscious and busy, featuring the entire cast in formation sitting in their chairs facing back stage right towards the band, who are tucked away in a Romanesque alcove. A decrepit, mournful soul wafts in the air, almost like a funeral, helped by the intimacy of the black box space.

The other representation is that the program is a simple “Spring Awakening” on a purple background. Though, I do appreciate the effort in making it look and feel like a proper “Playbill” (down to the similarly bold serifed font), the bare presentation doesn’t evoke the professionalism that the production has. 6/10

Verdict

Maryland Theatre Collective’s Spring Awakening is rough around the edges, but still a solidly enjoyable production to catch for Baltimore-area audiences. 23/40