Spring Awakening and its musical counterpart: A Comparison

Spring Awakening (literally translated as The Awakening of Spring, or Spring's Awakening) by Frank Wedekind is a timeless classic tale about libido, rape, gays, teenage pregnancy, and suicide. Penned originally in 1891, the topics in the story were extremely controversial, and the play was banned in many places and otherwise censored. The play was not performed for the first time until over twenty years later in 1917, where the production was proclaimed pornographic and played only one performance on the New York stage. The musical version of the show, also named Spring Awakening, experienced a much different reception. It was near-universally acclaimed by critics and audiences alike and ran for over three years, being nominated for eight Tony Awards and winning three. While the names are the same, the two works are nearly as different from each other as how they were perceived by their audiences.

Broadly speaking, the play is considered by many to be much darker than the musical. Save for the fact that the play doesn't have pop/rock songs moving the story along, the original play somehow comes across more tragic than the musical in the way of the loss of innocence. The original play is indeed subtitled "A Tragedy of Childhood".

One of the bigger changes between the two shows is the occurrence between the main characters Melchior and Wendla in a hayloft. In the play version, Melchior kisses Wendla and rapes her as she tries to persuade him to stop. In the musical, Wendla still does not want to be intimate with Melchior, but eventually he gets her to agree. In both versions, Wendla has no idea what is going on.

The second big change between the two works is the final scene: Melchior in the graveyard, where he goes to mourn his friend Moritz's suicide and he comes upon Wendla's fresh grave. She died of a botched abortion. In the musical, the ghost of Moritz comes to sing to a weeping Melchior, who pulls out a razor and nearly kills himself until the ghost of Wendla joins them. Both ghosts sing to Melchior, telling him that they will always be with him and that he should go on with his life rather than kill himself. Melchior lowers the razor, and the musical ends in a song of hope and new life. The play has the same setup: Melchior happening upon Wendla's grave. In this version, the ghost of Moritz is entirely more sinister, actually urging Melchior to kill himself and join him in the afterlife. After a long time in thought to himself, Melchior nearly complies with the ghost, until a Masked Man comes from the shadows and convinces Melchior not to do himself in. The Masked Man makes Moritz explain his true intentions: he only wishes for Melchi to join him in the afterlife because he is lonely. Moritz admits that the afterlife is miserable. The Masked Man disappears, Melchi resolves to leave the graveyard, and the play ends.