SPRING AWAKENING

by Frank Wedekind (translated by Edward Bond)

Union Theatre, Southwark
4 - 22 July 2006

Produced by the Union Theatre

In 1891, the 26 year old Frank Wedekind completed Spring Awakening, a provocative and compelling new play. So dangerous and theatening was this masterpiece that the first uncensored production in this country was not until 1974, long after his death.

Setting it in a small provincial town in Germany, he explores a world that epitomises the nineteenth-century philosophy of brutality and Christian morality. The unhappy and unfulfilled adults repress the adolescents' new-found desire for self-knowledge. The bright and curious children learn to destroy or be destroyed.