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1. A Respectable Family

There are some more photos of this production below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind - Ernst Röbel

- BOVTS at the New Vic Studio, Bristol. Directed by Adrian Cairnsr.

Spring Awakening was written in 1891, and is astonishingly modern. It was widely considered to be shockingly transgressive and borderline pornographic in its time, and was actually banned in Britain until the 1960s. It is a searing indictment of repressive and misdirected morality. Nearly all its teenage protagonists are destroyed by ignorance and the brutish power of misguided adults - the main character commits suicide after failing an important examination, another ends up a fugitive from a reformatory and another dies on the abortionist's table.

At times veering towards the polemical, the play is nevertheless a powerful and dramatic piece of work. Although none of us were teenagers at the time(!) at least the cast retained some of the rebellion and anger of our teenage years and the playing was excellent thoughout, particularly Sally Baxter as the doomed Wendla and Simon Treves as Melchior.

I had only a small supporting part in this production but, in a sign of the interest in make-up and physical transformation that I would develop as my career developed, I dyed my hair a platinum blonde for the role! To this day I'm not sure why - some sort of idea that Ernst represented some "Germanic" ideal I think! Incidentally, I think this caused a certain amount of puzzlement on the part of Richard Cotterell the Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic at the time when, to gain some professional experience and to supplement my meagre grant, I turned up to be an extra in his production of 'Hamlet' at the Theatre Royal at the same time. I think he thought I was emulating Olivier's platinum blonde look in the film version of 'Hamlet' in the hope of getting a promotion to the leading role! Heh!