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.