As long ago as 1891, playwright Frank Wedekind apprised us of the destruction engendered by denying children sex education—not metaphorical tales of storks and angels, but blueprint-explicit depictions of human reproduction and the biological, behavioral, psychological, and social applications associated therewith that continue to exercise intractable power over youths whose pubescent bodies betray even those lucky enough to have free access to doctor dad's medical books. In 2008, more than a century later, Wedekind's warning to adult authorities was repeated—this time by teenagers dressed in Victorian regalia, but declaiming in fluent 21st-century idiom (where a popular catch-phrase like "Life's a bitch!" becomes a jeremiad to hormonal frenzy entitled "The Bitch of Living").
If the purpose of the music in "musicals" is, by definition, to express the characters' inner perceptions, every song in Duncan Sheik's pop-oriented score for Spring Awakening, even the duets, emerges as a soliloquy revealing what fills the consciousness of each individual vocalist. Acknowledging the intimacy presented by so small an auditorium as the Ruth Page, director Brenda Didier has wisely dispensed with most of the hand-microphones brandished in Broadway premiere, instead allowing Chris Rhoton's wood-plank floor to resound with the angry foot-stamping of frustrated adolescents, even as Patrick Chan's misty reed lighting lends the quiet moments a romantic enchantment before breaking suddenly into dazzling brilliance.
It's now 2022, however, and while we may dismiss the ignorance of past generations, the repressive attitudes today—couched in repressive slogans like "Just Say No" or, more recently, "Don't Say Gay"—continues to cripple the promise of productive futures for young people in all cultural demographics, making the urgency of Porchlight's production (featuring a cast barely older than the striplings they portray) more timely than ever.
