- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
My excuses to fans of Spring Awakening, but I think the whole show is a dud. I've listened to the songs over and over again. The whole concept is a bit too artsy-fartsy for my taste, but mostly it's the music that I don't like. It's terrible. Definitely not Broadway material there!
I have always loved American musical theater, from the Show Boats and Rosalies to the Assassins and Cabarets. This one just doesn't do it for me. I respect Mr. Sheik for attempting to modernize the Broadway tradition, to do something innovative, but I don't know where he is going, and I decidedly don't want to go on the ride. He makes a good point, though, when he talks about 'outsiders.' Critics and audiences alike seem to appreciate Spring Awakening as a great new musical, whereas I see it merely as an ephemeron, a token show created by men and women who have either nothing to do with Broadway or, worse yet, intentionally want nothing of it. All kinds of art have histories: painting, photography, dance, set design, even American musical theater, which like Jazz, is a strong part of our American cultural identity. What makes any object or performance of art interesting and relevant to its very art form, no matter how avant-garde or deconstructed it may be, is its self-reflection, reference and allusion to its own past and origins. I hope I'm not being too nasty, but Spring Awakening, in my opinion, fails this.
I have a problem with the 'rock musical' genre, that is, I wonder if it truly is a genre. Hair, for example, is a great show with great numbers. It may, to some extent, borrow from elsewhere -- it's nonetheless a musical. Heck, even the Swedes Benny and Bjorn of ABBA understood back in 1984 when they composed Chess with Tim Rice. "I Know Him So Well" is a wonderful show tune, a real show stopper. I still wouldn't call Chess a 'rock musical.' I'm always sceptical when a new production comes out calling itself, or getting called, enthusiastically or unfavorably, a 'rock musical.'
There are no show stoppers in Spring Awakening. Nor are there any intelligent, well-crafted witty numbers like you might hear in a Sondheim show. Nor are there any tunes that actually sound like they were written for Broadway. No, the Spring Awakening album just sounds like another CD of bad pop music. It won't be remembered twenty years from now.
