UK Theatre Network

Spring Awakening

The People’s Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne

Reviewed by Steve Burbridge & Ian Cain

‘Spring Awakening’ is a vibrant and poignant story, set in the late nineteenth century, about a brilliant young student, Melchior (Dylan Stafford), his troubled friend Moritz (Thomas Whalley), and Wendla (Bethany Walker), a beautiful teenage girl – all on a voyage of personal discovery and sexual awakening. Along with their class mates and friends, experiencing changes and urges for the first time in their lives.

Inspired by Frank Wedekind’s 1891 masterpiece of repressed emotion and adolescent passion, which was banned in its native Germany for about a century, ‘Spring Awakening’ explodes onto the stage once again, driven by a thrilling contemporary score which was written by Steven Sater.

This magnificent production is presented by Nice Swan Theatre Company, a student based group in Tyne and Wear, which provides a stepping stone between amateur and professional theatre for young talent from all over the region.

The production values associated with Nice Swan’s staging of ‘Spring Awakening’ are first class. The young cast play their parts with an exuberance that is raw, fresh, honest and untainted. The principals are astoundingly good: Thomas Whalley, in particular, is fantastic as the gangly Moritz and he looks like a cross between Erasure’s Andy Bell and Johnny Depp’s Edward Scissorhands. Dylan Stafford and Bethany Walker are equally as compelling as the young lovers, Melchior and Wendla, and the scenes that they share are genuinely tender and touching.

Jane Hutchinson and Lee Rosher both convincingly portray a variety of ‘adult’ roles and really get the opportunity to demonstrate their versatility as performers. The rest of the company, consisting of Carl Beeley, Dale Jewitt, Rebecca Withers, Ruth Hilton, Michaela Forbes, Lewis Jobson, Jess Brady, Sean Bell and Mahsa Bahary, are a tight and cohesive ensemble.

Director Ben Hunt and Producer Jamie Gray have bestowed this production with the standards that one would normally expect from a production in London’s West End. Not even the smallest of technical details has been overlooked: the acting is top notch; the choreography is slick and precise; the set is functional yet quirky and the sound and lighting effectively reflect the atmosphere and mood of the proceedings on stage.

Indeed, it is refreshing to see talented youngsters performing in work that is artistically stimulating. Surely, it must be far more culturally enriching to hone their considerable talents in live theatre than it would to enter into the sausage factory that is ‘X-Factor’ or ‘Britain’s Got Talent’?

‘Spring Awakening’ is an intense, gripping and enthralling production that is beautifully executed by a young Theatre Company who are destined to have a very bright future ahead of them.

Runs until Saturday 2 October 2010.