Book description
A Student Edition of Wedekind's classic 1891 expressionist play about
adolescent sexuality. Wedekind's notorious play Spring Awakening
influenced a whole trend of modern drama and remains relevant to today's
society, exploring the oppression and rebellion of adolescents among
draconian parents and morals. This seminal work looks at the conflict
between repressive adulthood and teenage sexual longings in a provincial
German town. Highly controversial and with themes of sexuality, social
attitudes and adolescence, the play is a popular and provocative text
for study, especially at undergraduate level. This translation by Edward
Bond and Elisabeth Bond Pable first brought the play to English
audiences when it premiered at the National Theatre in 1974. Receiving
high praise ('scrupulously faithful both to Wedekind's irony and his
poetry.' The Times), this version is now considered to be the definitive
English translation. This Student Edition features expert and helpful
annotation, including a scene-by-scene summary, a detailed commentary on
the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes,
characters, language and structure of the play, as well as a list of
suggested reading and questions for further study and a review of
performance history. Frank Wedekind (1864-1918) was a journalist,
advertising manager, secretary to a circus, cabaret artiste, satirist,
convict and actor as well as the author of twenty-one plays, many of
which reflect aspects of his extraordinary career. He himself paid for
the publication of Spring Awakening (1891), though it was not staged
till 1906. (In England it was banned from public performance until
1963.) Earth Spirit (1895), the first of his plays to be seen on stage
(1898), introduced the sexually voracious Lulu, who also figured in
Pandora's Box (1904) and subsequently in Alban Berg's opera (Lulu, 1935)
and in Peter Barnes' conflation of the two plays seen in England in
1970. Other notable plays include The Marquis of Keith (1900; British
premiere, 1974), King Nicolo (1902), Castle Wetterstein (1910) and
Franziska (1912). Wedekind was greatly admired by Brecht, and his
satiric songs still have considerable bite.
