The only thing I found shocking about this was how completely the adults were willing to leave their children in ignorance because of how it would offend their own delicate sensibilities. Then again, I'm reading this in 2018 rather than 1918. In other news, I've never read a Franzen book (he comes off as pretentious to me) but I found his take on the musical adaptation of Spring Awakening in the introduction to be amusing.

I watched the play whilst at the same time reading this book.

This is such a relevant and relatable play.. the emotions and pains and questions that these kids have are so common and natural that it almost seems based on your own life? I loved Wendla's sweet yet tragic arc.. Melchi's 'fight the system' attitude and poor Moritz's devastating conclusion..

I took a lot from this play and it feels like a privilege to have watched/read it.

Liked it but was not blown away but very interesting show for the time it was written challenging discussion of sexuality

Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it, or not because you died when ur mom forced u to have an abortion that failed and u didn’t even know what was going on and it was so sad

Muss halt einfach nicht sein!

Wild!

Now I know the answer to this question: Will Evan cry while reading the script of a musical he cried at and often cries while listening to the soundtrack?

I'm a wuss, I know, but this beautiful, haunting work that puts a spotlight on religion and society's complete repression of anything "personal," "individual," or in particular "sexual" just rings very true for me.

I also greatly appreciated the author's thorough explanation of why he felt he had to update--and in some cases slightly alter--the original play from the late 1800s in the script's forward.

Saw a production of this at the Olney Theater center in Maryland. It was very good but still, I was a bit disappointed. I'd heard such wonderful things about it that I'm pretty sure that this was just a case of too highly inflated expectations.

For me the combination of modern music and sometimes hard to make out lyrics combined with what is essentially a period piece took something away from the magic that I require in any musical I'm going to rate 5 stars.

Don't misunderstand. The show was very good and the issues are timeless, but I was not struck with those moments of raw ecstasy or epiphany or even any "hey! That's genius!" moments that I've had with so many of my other five star ratings.

This may well be a case where I need to listen to the songs a few more times and THEN see it again. Sometimes one's first exposure to a work is not the defining one.

Wow, le concept est trop cool?? Le sujet de la sexualité des jeunes, l’avortement, le suicide, la masturbation, l’homosexualité…tout des concepts taboo pour la fin du 19ième siècle. Malgré que, la sexualité des adolescents est encore un sujet taboo et mal vu dans notre société. Cette pièce devrait être plus connue. J’ai malheureusement pas aimé comment c’était écrit, c’était trop difficile lire à mon goût. Je sais que de base c’est écrit sous forme de script, (c’est peut-être aussi la traduction) mais si elle aurait été écrite de façon plus romanesque, ça serait dans gueule, genre miam

Was zur Hölle

Poor or non-existent sex education can lead to such undesirable results as rape, suicide and teen-age pregnancy. Illegal abortion can lead to death.

Well, preaching to the converted, there. The trouble is that the un-converted are the kind of people who would get outraged by a play like this and try to ban its performance or publication. I would like to think the problem is not as severe now as at the time of its initial publication but here in Britain it is still possible for parents to prevent their children from attending sex-ed classes if they want to. The children of such parents seem likely to be the ones who stand in most need of it, though, so complacency is not an option.

The play itself is, in this version, short and readable and has a completely bizarre final act. Who is the masked man?

if you support melchior admitting to raping wendla and hanschen and ernst being portrayed as a healthy relationship clap your hands