The Commercial Failure of Spring Awakening

I bookended my week with Spring Awakening this week - went by myself on Monday night to see how it fared, then took Sean on Friday night to get someone's completely clean perspective on the quality of the show. The conversation we had following it led me to two conclusions:

*It's an outstanding, fresh, exciting, and flawed show that absolutely should be on Broadway.

and

*It'll probably be closed well before it sees its titular season - end of January, perhaps, especially since the Jujamcyns are bent on bringing Radio Golf in this season, and since Grey Gardens isn't going anywhere and the O'Neill is their only other theatre that's suitable for a play, well...

I don't say that with any sort of reveling - truly, I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. But I think that the commercial failure of Spring Awakening, if it happens as I believe it's going to, will inspire some conversations that need to be had about how to make the 'new', exciting works that everyone clamors Broadway doesn't have enough of more commercially viable.

Regarding the 'flaws' I mentioned earlier - like my beloved Grey Gardens, which I will go to bat 1,000% for just as much I will openly admit that it's imperfect - they seem to mostly lie in Act 2, and mostly are in the book. Yet they're not enough to really sink this show and warrant the low numbers and early closing that it's had and I think awaits it further.

I can nitpick about lots of things - I still think the Act 2 opener 'The Guilty Ones' is vastly inferior to the much quieter and distrubing 'There Once Was the Pirate' that opened Act 2 Off-Broadway. "Guilty Ones" makes its point in a bit more obvious way, and is a bit more of a jarring Act 2 opener that maybe a commercial audience needs than a quiet, nursey-rhyme like song (though it does complete the 'playing pirates and games' motif that symbolizes their childhood and innocence that Ilse brings up to Moritz during 'Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind' - without the 'Pirate' song, this is just sorta thrown in there, too specific to be meaningless but strangely without anything attached to it.)

Additionally, the gay subplot (while very funny) is just kinda thrown in there...and I think the show could just send (slight spoiler) in the graveyard scene after 'Those You've Known' and be really powerful - I love the 'Song of Purple Summer' number, but still don't quite grasp exactly what they're going for in it (I plan to listen closely to the lyrics on the CD to figure it out) - it ends a bit too Rent/Taboo/other rock musical-y, where the 'stirring upbeat anthem' comes in to send you out on a high. Also, 'Those You've Known' devastated me in a way that it didn't Off-Broadway - I don't know if this scene & song have changed a lot, but it's really, really fantastic.

I also think their art doesn't serve the show especially well - not that I was necessarily in love with the Off-Broadway art (to the left), but I think it grasped the surreal nature and concept of the piece better than what they're using right now (to the right).

Again, though - I really love the show, and all these things are very nitpicky, only because I love it as much as I do. It's an exhilarating, great experience, the cast is pretty much flawless (I'm jumping on the Groff/Michele/Gallagher Jr. Tony Award bandwagon right now), and the marriage of this well-known text, this rich rock score and some pretty high-concept, Brechtian staging elements is overwhelmingly ambitious, and, in its best moments, is unquestionably some of the best theatre happening in New York right now.

Further, the things I was being picky about before don't make or break a show - I'm hard pressed to create a concrete explanantion for 49% attendance/less than $200K grosses/less than $1M advance for a piece that has some of the best word of mouth in years and a score that everyone universally agrees is brilliant, to say nothing of the fantastic and photogenic cast (is this a case of the adage 'sex sells' not working out after all?)

Watching all of this unfold (the cult following, the struggling sales, the beloved CD), I can't help but think that Spring Awakening will be one of those shows that closes on Broadway very quickly, becomes a staple at benefit concerts and events of the like over the years to the point where this production becomes the stuff of theatre legend, only to see a revival in 15 years or so where everyone realizes that they missed out the first time and wonders why it didn't succeed in the first place. It's going to have a very strong college and regional production life, too, which is a mark of success.

Anyway, I know how half-baked most of these thoughts are, but it's something that's been eating at me the past few days, and on the eve of opening night, I wanted to get them down. All best to the entire company tonight...I'll be watching the reviews very closely, as will most of the theatre community, I think - I don't remember the last time there was this much rooting for a show to succeed/good will.

Oh, and also - the CD is just as outstanding as you'd hope (it's on sale at the theatre, in stores on Tuesday.) I might've preferred a little more dialogue, and there doesn't seem to be a 'There Once Was a Pirate' bonus track as was buzzed there would be, but it's a really amazing capture of how excellent the score itself is (Sheik produced it definitely with a 'this is a stand alone CD of music' sensibility, which I think shows off his work very, very effectively.)

So, by all means - buy the CD, buy a ticket, experience this show for yourself, form your own thoughts about it, and support great new work. We're reaching an exciting point as of late where 'There are no good shows/the shows are all bland, the same/etc' are no longer excuses - that will only be the case if it's allowed to be.

But, I digress...

Peace, with fingers crossed for Spring Awakening...

/jt

Comments

[Robbie]

"There Once Was a Pirate" is available on iTunes.

[emilie]

nice post! i love this show and i hope it lasts longer than january... did you notice any changes between monday and friday's show (i was there friday as well!)?

i saw it two saturdays ago and then the following friday and the only change i noticed was the different outfits in the graveyard scene....

[vince]

This is definitely a show worthy of support. I enjoyed reading your review. Thank goodness the critical reception has FORCED people to pay attention to this gorgeous show. Their grosses have increased week by week by leaps and bounds, so it looks like it is finding its legs and will be around for a long long time. BTW, I disagree about "Pirate". While beautiful, it was too obtuse and added nothing to the plot. I don't think we need that song in order to "believe" Ilse when she mentions they used to play pirates. "Guilty Ones" reinforces the relationship between Melchoir and Wendla, establishes that it was consensual and make us care more for them.
Also, I personally thought the Atlantic poster didn't tell people anything about the show...
Thanks for this great review! Let's keep crossing our fingers. Anyone who hasn't gone to see this yet, you're missing out!