So I can think of very little else at the moment but Spring Awakening. I love it. How did I not discover this properly before? It’s just so good! The music is absolutely incredible, the story and the characters are astoundingly moving, and it’s an all round Tremendous Spectacle (a phrase I really want to use more in conversation). And tonight I got to thinking why.
It’s set in 1890s Germany, but it’s so accessible because it’s just an extreme truth – one that is still true for us today. And why are we going to love doing this? Because we relate to it. We are the right age to understand exactly what we’re singing, and we’ve felt the emotions we’ll be trying to play. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gonna be difficult. This is extremes of the emotions in extreme situations. But I think we’ll do it because we can draw on our own experiences, however tame they are in comparison.
It’s January – it’s exam time. And coursework time. And last minute uni or drama school application panic time. And trying so hard to work out what we want to do and who we want to be and getting enough work experience and also keeping our personal hobbies going whilst trying to juggle A Levels and a social life, and trying to do all this despite my mother shouting at me because I’ve left debris from this hurricane all over the house, which seems completely trivial in light of the actual hurricane. I’m not in a relationship at the moment, but that’s another thing that brings great paintballs of emotion and hormones to our lives.
There are days when we just feel trapped and snowed under. We have far too much to do and not enough time to do it and we clearly should have started earlier. There are days when we love life and believe that it will be alright and we decide that we don’t care.
And I think that’s exactly what Spring Awakening is about. And that’s why it’s so clever. The modern music is so easy to get into and explode these emotions through, so that even when our characters are dealing with things we’ve never been through, actually we have got an emotional base to draw from. I’ve always thought this sort of thing works best for the Youth Company – that’s what made Private Peaceful mean so much to me: we were all the same age as these boys who were going off to fight in the war, despite what you often see in films about it. And when you think about it that way you realise that they were all people as rich in personality and experience as every one of us were. They stop being just names on a memorial.
That’s one thing that this Company has brought me. I’ve made friends with such a variety of people unlike I have ever been exposed to anywhere else. And actually, we all have quite a lot in common – our love of acting being an obvious example. And the more I’ve got to know them, the more I’ve realised that everyone has a story. Absolutely everyone has something. And so does everyone you pass on the street. And everyone you see in the back of a news report on telly. And everyone who exists. And has ever existed. And that is mind-boggling.
So I’m looking forward to exploring the richness of Spring Awakening as much as I can – I don’t care what you say about concentrating on my A Levels. This is important to. And what’s more, it’s FUN!
We haven't even had our first rehearsal yet, but I already want to share this with you too. Book your tickets!
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