‘Spring Awakening’ by Deaf West Theater Brings a New Sensation to Broadway
Charles IsherwoodSeptember 27, 2015: One of the great musicals of the last decade was born anew on Sunday, when the thrillingly inventive Deaf West Theater production of “Spring Awakening” opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theater. Any qualms theater-lovers might have about this being a premature, whiplash-inducing revival — the original closed in 2009, after all — will vanish like frost in strong sunlight when the young cast of both hearing and deaf actors floods the stage. Deaf actors in a musical? The prospect sounds challenging, to performers and audiences alike. But you will be surprised at how readily you can assimilate the novelties involved, and soon find yourself pleasurably immersed not in a worthy, let’s-pat-ourselves-on-the-back experience, but simply in a first-rate production of a transporting musical. “Spring Awakening,” with a fluidly written book by Steven Sater and a beautiful score by Duncan Sheik, is adapted from the 19th-century German play by Frank Wedekind, which was banned after publication. In this production, directed with remarkable finesse by Michael Arden (who starred in the same company’s “Big River,” seen on Broadway in 2003), the primary roles are divided among deaf and hearing actors, with the deaf performers’ songs and some of their dialogue being delivered by actors who double the roles.
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