Spring Awakening - Softcover

Wedekind, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571177913 ISBN 13: 9780571177912

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1996

Synopsis

This version of Frank Wedekind's extraordinary play Spring Awakening was specially commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The themes it addresses and the sheer energy of the writing make this masterpiece of German symbolism startlingly relevant today.

With its scenes of pubescent angst, sexual outspokenness, rape and homosexuality, the play still, more than one hundred years after it was first staged, has the power to shock. Ted Hughes's rendition lends the dialogue a particularly modern terseness and bite, drawing out all the erotic energy of the original.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Spring's Awakening is a tragi-comedy of teenage sex. Its fourteen-year-old heroine, Wendla, is killed by abortion pills. The young Moritz, terrorized by the world around him, and especially by his teachers, shoots himself. The ending seems likely to be the suicide of Moritz's friend, Melchior, but in a confrontation with a mysterious stranger (the famous Masked Man) he finally manages to shed his illusions and face the consequences.

About the Author:

Frank Wedekind (1864-1918) was born in Hanover. He became a journalist and later secretary of a circus before forming his own theatrical company and producing and acting in his own plays. Fruhlings Erwachen (Spring Awakening) was written in 1891 and like all his plays aroused great controversy for its sexual outspokenness.It is perhaps his best known work.

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in Yorkshire. He has written numerous collections of poems and books for adults and children. His adaptation of Seneca's Oedipus was performed at the Old Vic Theatre, London in 1968. In 1971/2 he worked with Peter Brook at his International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris. In 1984 he was appointed Poet Laureate. this version of Spring Awakening was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare company and first performed in The Pit at the Barbican, London, in August 1995.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0571177913
• ISBN 13: 9780571177912
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96