The Bitch Of Living

i-a7a0aea5bbd3a791689ef9c528a24b55-wall06.jpgRemember high school? Social pressure and teen angst amid discovering sexuality and a changing physique... perhaps finding your first love while drunk on a cocktail of emotions that defy explanation?

Heck, at 27, I'm still confused now and then. But I suspect these feelings are universal and it's comforting to recognize that no one's quite got it all figured out. So what is it that governs our actions and how do we come to terms with the raw emotions that influence our thoughts and behaviors?

This is what I got to wondering while in NYC where I caught 'Spring Awakening'--the best show I've seen in at least a decade. It's a rock musical about morality, sexuality, and the loss of innocence. It's about reconciling the disparity of what should be with our collective social reality. It's not like anything else on Broadway [check out 'The Bitch of Living']. All I can say is go see it!

The New York Times:

This brave new musical, haunting and electrifying by turns, restores the mystery, the thrill and quite a bit of the terror to that shattering transformation that stirs in all our souls.

Science meets culture and literature and music and art; Life meets all of us at Spring Awakening. Watch more here...

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great show! loved it

An interesting kind of "rock and roll" morality: if you do badly at school, you die; if you have sex outside of marriage, you will be disgraced and die (female); if you have sex outside of marriage, you will be imprisoned and die (male; if you're gay, stay in the closet and you'll live a fine life. These aren't the moral messages I associate with the origins of the punk rock score. How times change.

I saw Spring Awakening too, and it is all you say. The entire cast sings gloriously, the lyrics and music tell the story.
Coming of age, at all ages, is at best difficult.

Fred,
I do believe that this story was written in the 1800's, in Germany.

Fred, Have you even seen the play? Guess not cause you have no idea what it's about. It's magnificent and deals with the beauty of being alive.

Great show. Cool to see it covered here. Finally a scientist who speaks my language! (I'm a poet).