Sev­en chil­dren are pushed into a world where they fumble their way towards adult­hood. Mor­itz and Thea are wor­ried about their aca­dem­ic records. Wendla wants to know where babies come from. Martha’s not sure if her home­life is nor­mal. Mel­chi­or has a lot of ques­tions. Hän­schen is try­ing to keep his head down. Ilse just wants to get out. Will they all sur­vive their time between child and adult?

First per­formed in 1906 and writ­ten about 15 years earli­er this is still a bru­tal explor­a­tion of adoles­cence and the struggles of grow­ing up. The cast – Riley Brophy, Tom Clarke, Josh Cra­mond, Karin McCrack­en, Fran Olds, Bryn­ley Stent, Acushla-Tara Sut­ton – are uni­formly excel­lent with every one shin­ing at some point dur­ing the play. Stand-out per­form­ances by Stent and Brophy illus­trate the ten­sions between naiv­ety and the desire for exper­i­ence, between the struggle to live up to par­ent­al expect­a­tions and the per­ils of ignor­ance. I also enjoyed Olds and Sut­ton as vis­it­ing adults who appear as if com­ing from some intrep­id adven­ture. Dir­ect­ors Samuel Phil­lips and Keagan Carr Fran­sch have nav­ig­ated dif­fi­cult emo­tion­al mater­i­al sens­it­ively and without redu­cing any of the impact. Their use of meta­phor and sug­ges­tion is superbly sup­por­ted by Sound Design­er Oliv­er Devlin, Light­ing Design­er Janis Cheng, and Set and Cos­tume Design­er Lucas Neal (with Cos­tume Con­sult­ant Har­riet Denby.)

Excel­lent and well worth using your 2‑for‑1 Wel­ling­ton Advent Cal­en­dar vouch­er on.

  • Spring Awaken­ing by Frank Wede­kind, dir­ec­ted by Samuel Phil­lips & Keagan Carr Fran­sch at BATS Theatre to 6 Feb­ru­ary 2016

Con­tent warn­ing: the pro­duc­tion con­tains chal­len­ging themes of abuse, sexu­al abuse and sui­cide. If you’d like to talk to someone about any of the themes in the show con­tact details for organ­isa­tions are included in the pro­gramme.