Spring awakening
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| Title: | Spring Awakening - A Child's Tragedy |
| Genus: | Satirical drama |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Frank Wedekind |
| Publishing year: | 1891 |
| Premiere: | November 20, 1906 |
| Place of premiere: | Berliner Kammerspiele , Berlin |
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Spring Awakening (subtitle "A Child Tragedy") is a socially critical - satirical drama by Frank Wedekind that was published in 1891 . The play tells the story of several young people who, in the course of their puberty and the sexual curiosity associated with it, are confronted with the problems of psychological instability and social intolerance of adults. The premiere took place on November 20, 1906 at the Berliner Kammerspiele under the direction of Max Reinhardt and - anonymous - by Hermann Bahr .
Important figures
- Melchior Gabor is an intelligent and above all sexually enlightened high school student with a liberal mother, but it is precisely his progressive thinking that later causes him great problems.
- Fifteen-year-old Moritz Stiefel is one of the worst students in his class. Moritz confides in his only real friend, Melchior Gabor, another problem besides school performance: the first "male emotions".
- Wendla Bergmann is an inquisitive fourteen-year-old girl with a conservative, middle-class mother. Like Moritz, she shows curiosity, but was never told what would later become her undoing.
- The hooded gentleman (and, analogously, Ilse, the painter's model) is a figure who stands for life and to whom the work is dedicated. He is, as he himself says, "unknown" to Melchior, since Melchior is still at the beginning of his life and has only had little experience. He appears in the last scene of the tragedy and moves Melchior to turn to life again. The figure of Ilse, who wants to seduce Moritz to live / play in Act 2 (7th scene), functions analogously - but here without success.
content
1st act
Wendla Bergmann and her mother have different opinions about choosing the right dress. The mother wants her daughter to put on a new, more modest dress that she has just sewn. Wendla, on the other hand, would rather have the old, shorter dress. The basic problem here is that Wendla has no awareness of her emerging femininity and her mother is not able to speak openly about it due to social conventions and socialization.
In the next scene, Melchior Gabor and his friend Moritz Stiefel talk about their future, upbringing and sexuality. Moritz turns out to be not sexually enlightened. At first, Melchior wants to inform him orally, but Moritz is uncomfortable. In the end, both agree that Melchior should prepare written and pictorial explanations about reproduction for Moritz and send them to Moritz unnoticed the next day, so that Moritz can read them later in peace.
Wendla and her classmates Thea and Martha talk about the boys from Melchior's class. Martha says that she is often beaten by her parents, which arouses Wendla's incomprehension and curiosity. Then they talk about the possibility of having children.
In front of the grammar school, the conversation among the students revolves mainly around Moritz, who is at risk of being transferred. When he appears, he excitedly reports that he had secretly sneaked into the conference room and read the documents that he would be transferred after all.
In the fifth and final scene, Melchior and Wendla meet by chance in the woods, where Wendla collected woodruff for her mother. They sit down under an oak tree and talk. In the course of the conversation, Wendla asks Melchior to hit her because she only knew this from telling stories and wants to experience it for herself. In response to Wendla's masochistic pleading, Melchior initially refuses to hit her, then more and more violently. He himself is shocked by his sadistic behavior and flees.
2nd act
In the evening, Melchior and Moritz meet in Melchior's room. Moritz complains about the pressure from school, which weighs heavily on him, and says that he often has to think of the fairy tale of the "Queen without a head". When Melchior's mother brings them tea, she expresses her concern that the two of them read Goethe's Faust , but leaves Melchior the choice of his books and thus shows her upbringing for self-responsibility, her trust in his judgment and tolerance towards her son.
Meanwhile, Wendla, whose sister has just had a child, urges her mother to enlighten her. This, however, has difficulty in explaining because decency dictates that she should not talk about sexuality. Wendla only learns that marriage and great love are required in order to have children.
Hänschen Rilow, one of Melchior's more uninhibited classmates, looks at the reproduction of a naked work of art in the toilet ( Venus von Palma il Vecchio , see right), while he satisfies himself, describes extravagant fantasies and then lets the picture fall into the sewer.
Wendla meets Melchior in a hayloft where Melchior rapes Wendla.
Melchior's mother answers a letter from Moritz asking for money to flee to America. She formally replies that she cannot and does not want to raise the sum, expresses dismay at Moritz's suicidal allusions and encourages him in writing instead of taking the situation seriously and seeking a conversation.
After receiving this reply, Moritz is determined to put his suggestions into practice. In expectation of death, he roams the bushes near a river, reminiscing about his life and being ashamed of having been human without having experienced the “most human” thing - physical love. He is surprised by Ilse, a young model . She tells of her peculiar experiences as a Bohémienne in the artistic world and invites Moritz to come along. Moritz, however, resists the tempting prospect and retreats to the bushes on the banks, where he burns the letter from Melchior's mother and then shoots himself.
3rd act
In a conference the rector explains to the professors the delicate situation for the grammar school caused by Moritz 'suicide. His main concern is that suicide will find imitators, not out of compassion for any victims, but out of fear of being held responsible by society. The assembled teachers show their inability or unwillingness to deal with the sad situation and its causes; the subject is tragically and comically mixed with the banal question of whether or not a window should be opened to improve ventilation in the teacher's room. Wedekind gave the teachers names like "broken bones" and "monkey wax" to make it clear what ridiculous figures they represent.
Melchior is finally called and, based on the commented illustrations he made for Moritz, accused of being responsible for the death of his classmate. He is not given a fair opportunity to defend himself, is only allowed to answer “yes” or “no” and is judged like a felon.
Moritz is buried in the pouring rain in the cemetery by the pastor in the presence of relatives, teachers and students. The dead are despised by adults because of the circumstances of their death; his father even tearfully stresses that Moritz was not his son. Students make macabre speculations about the circumstances of their death before going back to their homework. Finally Martha and Use, who had found Moritz dead, stand in front of the grave and say goodbye. Martha asks Ilse for the found pistol, but Ilse wants to keep it as a memento.
Melchior's role in the death of his friend leads to an argument with his parents. While the father sees the liberal educational measures of his wife as the cause and thinks about a profound transformation of Melchior, Melchior stands protectively in front of her son. The father confronts her with a letter from her son to Wendla, which her mother intercepted. In the letter, Melchior expresses remorse for his sexual acts with Wendla, thus providing evidence of his "moral wrongdoing". Melchior's mother recognizes his writing, is shocked and then changes her mind. When the father also reports that Melchior had asked his uncle for money in order to leave for England, both parents mutually decide to send Melchior to a correctional institution and thus deviate from the free upbringing.
In the correctional facility, among other boys who have become dull after a long imprisonment and only enjoy activities such as group masturbation and fighting, Melchior grapples with his guilt towards Wendla and forges escape plans.
Wendla feels sick and is in bed, the doctor called in remains discreet towards her. Wendla's mother initially persuades her that she is bleached , but finally explains the real reason for her strange condition: pregnancy. Against Wendla's accusation that she was not told the full truth, the mother defends herself by saying that she acted on the model of her own mother. In order to avert illegitimate motherhood, Wendla's mother arranges a medicinal abortion, which Wendla dies of.
In the penultimate scene, the two students, Hänschen Rilow and Ernst Röbel, are lying on the grass together and enjoying the romantic evening to the fullest while they calmly think about their future. They show homosexual tendencies, kiss and confess their love to one another.
Melchior fled the correctional institution and fled to the cemetery. At the sight of Wendla's grave he feels guilty and suicidal. When he wanted to move away from this sad place, the dead Moritz appeared to him, holding his own head under his arm. Moritz praises the light-heartedness of the dead, which is above all earthly things, and in this way tries to persuade Melchior to follow him to the grave. But before Melchior can agree to do so, a "masked gentleman" appears who dissuades him from his suicidal thoughts. The gentleman, who does not want to reveal his identity, exposes Moritz as a swindler who is only afraid of returning alone to his lonely world of the dead. Melchior finally decides to go on living. He thanks Moritz for their time together, promises him never to forget him and entrusts his future to the “masked man”.
Emergence
While Wedekind had written a first draft in Zurich, he wrote the drama between October 1890 and April 1891 in Munich. The piece is inspired by the author and his classmates' own experiences. Two classmates, Frank Oberlin and Moritz Dürr, who had committed suicide in 1883 and 1885, served as a model for Moritz Stiefel. Dürr had told the writer about his plan to die, whereupon Wedekind promised to write a drama about him.
After a Munich publisher had refused to publish the piece for fear of legal problems, Wedekind published it in October 1891 at his own expense at the Jean Groß publishing house in Zurich. It made Spring Awakening his first printed book. Franz von Stuck designed the cover picture of the first edition according to Wedekind's instructions: it shows a spring landscape .
Impact history
In his work, Frank Wedekind criticizes the prevailing bourgeois sexual morality in the Wilhelminian Empire , in particular the pressure on people resulting from the taboo, which breaks young creatures in particular. He often makes sophisticated use of stylistic figures and grotesquely exaggerated characters that give the work a humorous touch. Often, however, these hyperbolic facets of the piece are not noticed.
Once banned or censored due to its alleged obscenity , Spring Awakening is now part of the ZEIT school library and is therefore widely used in schools in German, Austrian and Swiss federal states.
The drama was first filmed in 1923 .
As a musical version, the piece entitled Spring Awakening received the Tony Award in eight categories for performance on Broadway in 2007 .
In 2009 Nuran David Çalış filmed the drama in a contemporary adaptation for ZDF .
In the same year, an official process was initiated against a German teacher teaching at the Zurich Cantonal School in Rämibühl . The mother of a schoolgirl accused him of pedophilia and of passing on pornographic material to minors because he was teaching Jeffrey Eugenides ' novel The Suicide Sisters and Wedekind's Spring Awakening . The trial dragged on for several years until he was acquitted of the original charges in 2012. The case was widely perceived as a judicial scandal . A review of the events took place in April 2013 by the theater group of the Rämibühl canton school. In their ensemble project I would not have bad pleasure they contrasted Wedekind's text with their own texts and opinions on the subject of sexuality in the present. The trial against the teacher DS was also discussed. The production received a lot of media coverage, which rekindled the discussion and triggered solidarity with the traumatized teacher from many sides.
In 2018, the theater company from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida , where a school massacre had occurred, played a musical version of Wedekind's play called Spring Awakening . The theater group appeared on television for their classmates who were shot and against US gun law and the National Rifle Association .
literature
- Martin Neubauer: Reading key. Frank Wedekind: Spring Awakening. Reclam, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3-15-015308-6 .
Web links
- "Spring awakening" text for the Gutenberg-DE project
- A picture of each figure : Roberta Bergmann's design and illustrations for Spring Awakening , published on the occasion of Frank Wedekind's 150th birthday in 2014
Individual evidence
- ^ Hermann Bahr: Diaries, sketchbooks, notebooks. Edited by Moritz Csáky. Böhlau; Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 1994–2003, V, 143–152.
- ↑ a b Georg Hensel: Afterword . In: Spring Awakening , Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, p. 102ff.
- ↑ King's Explanations and Materials Vol. 406: Frank Wedekind Spring Awakening - 2nd Text Analysis and Interpretation ( Memento from December 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Frank Wedekind: Spring Awakening. Groß, Zurich 1891. ( digitized version and full text in the German text archive )
- ↑ The history of the spring awakening at Theater Ulm (PDF; 416 kB)
- ↑ Willi Winkler: Spring Awakening. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .