Spring Awakening Manila (2009) -- forgettable
Thanks to
Mia's headsup, I watched Spring Awakening with
Set,
Faith, and
Archie. We got orchestra center seats, which gave us a good view of the stage.
I didn't know about Spring Awakening, other than it was a coming-of-age musical. Judging from people's love of the Broadway production, I don't think the local act did it justice. Although the singing acts were good, the choreography was not. The steps were far from polished, and to put it bluntly, Melchior can't dance. Spring Awakening tackles such heavy issues as abortion, rape, child abuse, and suicide, but glosses over them so that the characters' individual tragedies become trivial.
Since we really didn't know anything about it, It took Set and me a while to figure out that all the adult male and all adult female characters are intentionally played by the same actor and actress. So we were like:
Set: Don't they have the same mother?
Me: Maybe they don't know...
I was also initially confused about Moritz's sexuality. It turns out he's a heterosexual rocker Jeff Spicoli who just happens to enjoy pointing his toes.
It ended up being more of a comedy, especially with Wendla's shaky voice and her scene with Melchior and the switch. (A fetish is born!)
All in all, the musical was forgettable.
Ooh-- camh0ring!
I cut my hair short again. :p
This won't deter us from watching the upcoming productions of Avenue Q, Sweeney Todd, and Spelling Bee though!