Friday, August 6, 2010

Spring Awakening 5* review from Broadway Baby

Spring Awakening
5* rating

Review by James Harding - Broadway Baby

The Summer Purple
August 06, 2010

"This musical is about adolescent sex. Onstage.

Spring Awakening follows a group of teenagers struggling to cope with the clandestine world of sex in conservative 19th-century Germany, and doesn’t pull its punches - the original Frank Wedekind play was banned in Germany for its explicit subject matter. There is a risk in modern versions of shows famous for their once-shocking subject matter of relying simply on their scandal value to make the production buzz, but this production has a more mature take on the play leaving room for the actors and audience to explore the issues beyond the historical context of the show.

I should tell you that the hype around Spring Awakening is huge. The heavily-adapted musical version has been a cult hit amongst musical-theatre fans across America and the UK and I know of at least six student productions coming up in the new year. If you can’t sing The Days of Purple Summer then you just aren’t in musical theatre. Many companies were disappointed not to get the rights for the fringe production - or at least, they will be until they see how wonderful this one is!

The imaginative and effective blocking relies heavily on the whole cast working together and at times watching the show is like watching the insides of a complex and beautiful machine. The company exude a wonderful ensemble attitude in their interpretation, their hours spent together on the RSAMD MA programme enabling powerful acting and stunning movement during the big numbers. The superb leads Helen Hart and Andrew Keay rightfully command most of the audience’s attention, although the humorous buffooning of Seth Leiber and the ever-present characterisation of Kristopher Bosch make them stand out from the ensemble. This young cast bring a mature note to the show everyone is talking about."

Into the rafters and a slight restage

Production: Closest to the Moon
Show Week 1
by Melanie Bell


Hi there all Closest to the Moon fans! Just wanted to add a quick update. We had our tech yesterday after a long day of Spring teching and it was our first chance to see and sing in the space. It's very intimate, and I think in a way it's good as all audience members will be up close and personal and probably be able to feel our breathing, so I suppose that is an experience in and of itself. And there is less chance words and lyrics will be hard to hear.

We did have to do a little re-staging, as is always the case when getting into a new venue, to accommodate the amount of people on stage. Have to say though, some of the physical work we are doing which might have looked sparse in a huge space totally overcomes this venue and Gram is literally in the rafters. So that should hopefully be impressive. We also added a little more to the "Broadway show nightmare" number, choreography wise and it's sure to be exciting. Anyhow, really looking forward to an audience's reaction later this week. It's at the point where we are madly in love with it and just want to see how others respond. Hope to see you there

In Touch with Edinburgh audiences

Production: In Touch
Show Week 1
by Rachel Middle (Alice)


So we've had our first preview! We performed in front if a reasonably sized audience on the 5th, and thus, the world premiere of "in touch" has taken place. They seemed to enjoy the funny bits, like the "poke" song, and the opening, but we also heard good feedback about the more serious storyline between Eamonn and Mairin as well. Jamie and Paul were very pleased because they said before that they find it difficult being the serious characters among so many comedic ones. As it turns out, one of Paul's scenes at the end was very funny and we struggled not to laugh on stage, another of those moments is where Tony (played by Byron) says the word "poles". You wouldn't believe that could be hilarious, but my god it is!

The venue itself is small, but perfect for what we want to do, it's just big enough to fit in our dances which were choreographed by Andrew Panton. A lot of the dances are really just sequences of avatar-like movements, but when we do them altogether I imagine they must look pretty impressive. What a shame it is that we will never be able to watch ourselves!

A week ago, when Candice realised that we were opening in a week, she burst into helpless laughter for about 10 minutes, but I think we have managed to pull it off. How about you all come along and see for yourselves!?
Pleasance Dome 12.10pm

Sunday, August 1, 2010

'Spring'ing into Action in Edinburgh


Production: Spring Awakening
Final Rehearsal Week
by Helen Hart (Wendla
)

Soooooo.... This is it!!!! We have finished the rehearsal process! It has come around so quickly and I think it is fair to say that we are all scared stiff! We had the busiest and most tiring week yet but it was incredible.

We had a zitzprobe (which basically means you run all the songs with the band for the first time) which was really exciting and hearing the full band really added something to each number. We also had our dress rehearsals and seeing all the costumes was amazing and we all look so young!

In one particular dress rehearsal I failed to come onstage for a scene with the girls... I was putting rubber on my bum (don't ask!) and missed my cue! Luckily the girls covered and I think it's safe to say that it won't happen again as I am now very paranoid!


SPRING AWAKENING PREMIERES IN 4 DAYS... here we go.........