Jerusalem with Mark Rylance: Biggest of Star Turns in Pertinent AF Play

It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the new production of Spring Awakening at London’s Almeida theatre, which runs until Jan. 29.

One of the best productions in London right now is Rupert Goold’s new take on Spring Awakening, Duncan Sheik & Steven Sater’s Tony-winning musical that originally starred Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff as wee naked babies. The show tells of a bunch of mad horny German teens coming of age as the adults and authority figures in their lives try to keep them ignorant and in line, and the tragic ramifications of trying to control children in such a way. It’s a sad song, it’s a tragedy, one that always felt relevant in Bible-thumping-abortion-hating America, and it has a bit of extra resonance in this climate of the supposed grown-ups failing the youths (and extra extra rez for these particular yoots, trying to build careers in theatre while the grown-ups are like ‘nah theatre isn’t important enough to us, you could try coding?, also we’re gonna tell audiences they don’t need to wear masks anymore so they cough all over you and your shows will probably continually get cancelled’).

Any dreadful outcomes you might imagine resulting from adults keeping truth from kids and holding them to impossible standards and not telling them about what their own bodies can do and being abusive &c happen in Spring Awakening, but the incredible music, story-building, and energy of a youthful cast keep it from feeling like on onslaught of depression porn. Even though there’s so much tragedy and frustration, it’s shown with emotional poignancy that prevents the feeling of utter darkness. There’s also lots of humor, as you’d expect from a show with several songs about masturbating. I particularly loved Hanschen’s (I think?) line to another boy about studying together and maybe ‘doing a little Achilles and Patroclus’, which I now better appreciate having just read “The Song of Achilles”.

I had high hopes for this production, as Spring Awakening is one of my all-time favorite shows and scores that I grew up on, and I saw the original cast an exorbitant number of times and I consider the 2015 Deaf West Broadway production to be one of the top five greatest productions of anything ever done anywhere throughout history, and I am not exaggerating, so yeah going in I was like show me what you got, fire that sucker up and throw it at my face. I wish they were still taking some tips, because my #1 thing is that these kids needed to be miked. There were so many brilliant parts of the score that felt too quiet or literally went unheard against the loud band (not that they were too loud, just the voices were not loud enough). The worst victim of this was “Touch Me”, which never rose with that incredible crescendo that is written into it, when Otto (I think?) belts the best belted line of all-time ‘WHERE I GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHEN I GO THERE/NO MORE SHADOWWWWWWWWWWW ANYMORE’ I mean, it was just a lil quiet baby lullaby and I wanted to shout ‘SING OUT LOUISE’, it’s THE BEST LINE.

But otherwise, the staging is what makes this production special. It’s a small intimate space, and the stage is entirely giant steps so the cast goes up and down the whole time building insane calves. I loved the use of all the projections on the steps, from their own scribblings to their graffiti to the gravestones. Some of the staging was a miss for me — the glass cage of emotion (husbo and I were telepathically imitating Ron Burgundy to each other, confirmed post-show), the excessive silent pauses in Act II, and I still wish that the audience found out about Wendla at the same time as Melchior (it packs more punch). But overall it was thoughtful and provocative, and there were moments of actual gasp-worthy brilliance — the beginning of “All That’s Known”, when all the schoolboys come up from below the stage in a vertical line of desks (I mean, the MOTHERFORKING TIMING on that one), and the entirety of “Mirror Blue Night”, which I’ve never seen staged to so perfectly capture the emotional turmoil of Melchior at that moment. That in particular made me think much differently about a scene I usually am a tiny bit whatever about.

The cast is good, with their high energy making up for a lack of high calibre vocal performances. The standout by far is Laurie Kynaston as Melchior Gabor, which works out because Melchior carries the show. We last saw him in Florian Zeller’s The Son, which ALSO went VERY badly for him, so fingers crossed he one day gets to star in a comedy or at least some sort of death-free romp. As for their direction, I was not a fan at how over-the-top evil they made the adult characters. They were presented in a clownish way for humor, but their evil and wrongdoing when played straight is so much more powerful.

Although you probably don’t care, I’ve buried the lead here with the part that stands out most to me that I honestly can’t stop shouting about: The bonus track from the original cast album, Duncan Sheik’s song ‘There Once Was a Pirate’, is included in this! Not only that, it OPENS ACT II. Not only that, IT GETS A REPRISE IN THE FINALE. This marked one of the top five moments I’ve almost screamed in a theatre. What a shock. The song worked so well, and the staging of it the first time was poetic. Its reprise as an intro to the finale was fine, but I was left wanting with the finale in general, because they have rewritten my favorite lines of what is one of my favorite songs ever, “The Song of Purple Summer”. The way the voices have always split into harmonies on “a swallow brings/a song too hard to follow/that no one else can sing” always gives me the feels something terrible and seals the show emotionally for me, making everything make sense and provide hope in a Pandora’s-Box-after-all-the-endless-shit kind of way, especially since the song is about how a new dawn has to be rising. So to have that line gone, along with many others, was aaaaquite the theatrical blueballing. Nonetheless, this is altogether a wonderful, powerful production of one of the great modern musicals.

AUDIENCE

Okay so we could not get over two things: First, that these two jamokes dead front and center were maskless and like BREATHING ON THE CAST. Second, that this complete jackwagon (also up front) absolutely living for “Totally Fucked” was rocking around in her seat and literally fist-pumping the air throughout the number. Look, I GET that it’s a forking banger and you’re definitely feeling it, but you’re still at the theatre and not a mosh pit. It was hilarious though how hard she committed to the part — this production has the kids silently staring at the audience at the end of the song RIGHT up close to us for a long time, powerfully implying ‘what the fuck have you done to us, we actually despise you, you ruined everything, you stupid bitch’, and this girl STILL KEPT FIST-PUMPING. IN AN EXTENDED AND HEAVY AND GROWING HEAVIER BY THE SECOND MOMENT OF SILENCE. Now that’s commitment to being a bellend, I’ll give her that.

INFO

Show is 2 1/2 hours.

The space only has one exit and there is no way to the House Right side of the rows (which have no center aisle btw, a nightmare) around the back, so if you are sitting in the right half of seats, you have to go through the front row and often step onto the first step of the stage, which, well, blows.

The Almeida needs a second set of toilets. Be ready for QUEUES, and the men’s was longer!!

Thanks for the water dispensers on the bar, loves it.

I don’t know why we slept so long on the 2023 Best Musical Olivier winner, but better late than never. Actually no, I do know why: it’s because husbo thought it would be ‘too English’ for my liking based simply on his knowledge that I hate colloquial English abbreviations like ‘brekkie’ so he says I’m ‘resistant to becoming British’ but little does he know I sign all my texts with x or even xx sometimes!

‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’ takes place in Sheffield over three different timelines, telling stories of the people living in one specific flat over three generations, from standard starter home to projects to gentrified little zooplas. The stories of the madly-in-love ’60s newlyweds, the ’80s refugees from Liberia, and the posho escaping dramaz in London in the present intertwine nicely at first and then devastatingly later, all set to Richard Hawley (famous British musician? Pulp?)’s back catalogue and poss some new songs? Is this a jukebox musical? Who can say, but no.

I don’t say this often so gird your loins: the book is good. It’s captivating and the various timelines keep things interesting, and just when someone gets annoying you get to switch to someone else. I was pissed that I could tell early on from the subtle clues (“we got all four of your clues!” “amazing! actually I left more than 1200 clues but I’m glad you got enough to figure it out!”) that there would be a tragedy, and it was obvious which character it would befall, and I was like “could we please have one thing that isn’t tragic!” but it was well done and so emotionally charged (slash manipulating no jk I’m okay) that I was pretty much ugly crying for the last 20 minutes. And sure that’s not the rarest occurrence during quality musical theatre but there does need to be a legitimate connection forged.

I was disappointed at first that it seems very much ‘play with music’ rather than ‘musical’, because aside from Laura Pitt-Pulver’s Act I solo, the music wasn’t actually driving story or fleshing out the characters; it was just using music to have music. But the second act’s songs were more purposeful, I think…or maybe I got less angry about it. Both good options! The first post-P.Pulver’s-sad-I-Want-song-to actually-be-about-the-action song (actually it was about half that song, because at first it seemed like another ‘let’s have someone in the ensemble grab a mic and just sing one of these songs’ but then it turned into actually being about the action in a nice little switcherooround) was a catchy super-belted number from LPP’s estranged girlfriend that we heard so much about (LPP’s Poppy (like my dog!) had talked incessantly about her ex Nicky but I knew immediately that it was a garl Nikki because no boys are called Nicky anymore but Z thought that was a well hidden surprise; I guess he didn’t realize the Nicky change of our generation). I was like ‘oh wow this chick has a super strong belt…this chick sounds familiar…THIS CHICK IS BLOODY ELLE!’ As in the best show we saw a few years back at the Fringe, Bloody Elle (real name Lauryn Redding)! So that was a lovely surprise.

The weaving together of the three well-balanced timelines feels fluid and unforced. Important historical events and political attitudes are noted, affecting the characters but not inserted forcibly or in a heavy-handed manner (hooray for storytelling and not the new wave of ‘here is what you should think!’ storyshouting). Like with our Liberian refugee family, the audience can remember for themselves how important it is for Britain to have open borders, and with our coal miner ’60s men railing against Thatcher, audiences can think ‘were some of these men in Billy Elliot’. The ways the stories connect (or not! no spoilers!) are initially revealed with subtlety that was a breath of fresh air in modern playwriting. Even though this theatre feels enormous (and breathable! all this air!) and the show tries to fill that space with loud noise and some big production numbers, it ends up feeling like an intimate little show that cuts you real deep, Shrek, which is pretty special.

INFO

SATSE (fun to say!) plays the Gillian Lynne theatre until August 3.

I LOVE this theatre. All the seats have decent legroom and more importantly, they have really high backs, so no one coughs into your hair.