Spring Awakening

When it came down to having a read through of the play I personally wasn’t satisfied with how the events unfolded, the songs however are the best part to it. As a whole, the play is based around a group of teenagers trying to find their way through a grown up run society in late 19th century Germany and learn that nothing is ever easy. Its a journey of self discovery, sexual awakening, maturity, and revolt. The music and singing is comtemporary so when the teens burst into song they act like teenagers of this era.

My main characters that I will be performing as is Herr Sonnenstich the Latin teacher and Herr Gabor Melchior Gabor’s father, while also taking part in the boy ensemble.

As the Latin teacher I have to learn how to pronounce certain words but luckily not as many as I originally thought. These words consist of:

“Laviniaque venit,” (translated to, ” left the Trojan.”) Lav-in-key

“Multum enim…?” (translated to, “much.”)

“Inferretque deos Latio,” (I couldn’t find a translation that I believed to be true but I believe its along the lines of restore.)

Pious Aeneas > Pie-us Uh-nee-uh’s

In the classroom they are reciting Virgil’s Aeneid.

Also wrapping my head around the german names it quite difficult.

“Stiefel,” > “Sht-ee-ful,”

“Lammermier,” > “Lam-mer-mIer,”

“Melchior,” > “Mel-key-your,”

“Gabor,” > “Ga-bor,”

This week we blocked my first and only scene as Herr Sonnestich, every time I got to practice I had to keep asking for help on how to pronounce the words. So for next week I’ll have them down and hopefully will almost have it by memory for when I get to next perform. I need to think about how I cam going to portray him, his natural expression, body language, posture and the way in which he should speak. I want to make this character all my own not like things I have done in the past.

How the scene runs:

Walk up to each student and listen to them recite the Latin, I then walk around the back of the class, slowly, intimidating the class scaring them. Ben who is playing Moritz is the one to make an error and I go to punish him but Dan who is play Melchior helps him. I hit his chest interrupting him. I need to figure out how I can make it clean and crisp.

I walk up and down the back while they talk (Dan and Ben.)

When realising their talking among themselves I grab Ben by the ear, need to work on that before giving him a last warning.