To be a teenager is to feel overwhelmed. It’s lonely. All sorts of oily, crunchy, hairy things happen to your body. You can’t stop thinking about that one hottie in your history class, with the tight pants and mesmerizing charisma and the million-dollar grin. You get dreams… wet ones. There’s an impossible weight to everything – a yearning for sexual and personal independence in a world that seems tailor-made to repress and restrict – and, to borrow a line from playwright Steven Sater, it’s totally fucked.
…a big risk made by directors Mark A. Rhea and Susan Marie Rhea: The cast of Spring Awakening is littered with young, local actors… Still, it’s a worthwhile gamble that pays off more often than not. [Ali] Hoxie’s innocence radiates throughout the show, emphasizing Wendla’s incomplete transition to womanhood. [Vincent] Kempski’s youthful vigor is on full display in “Totally Fucked,” the production’s best-realized song, even if that excitement only appears in fits and starts during the first act.
Ultimately, though, the show hinges on [Paul] Scanlan’s thrilling turn as Moritz. Scanlan’s a hearty shot in the arm, a necessary reminder of the awkward, uncomfortably loud flaws of adolescence…
