"One of the great musicals of the last decade was born anew on Sunday, when the thrillingly inventive Deaf West Theater production of 'Spring Awakening' opened on Broadway. Any qualms theater-lovers might have about this being a premature, whiplash-inducing revival will vanish like frost in strong sunlight when the young cast of both hearing and deaf actors floods the stage...A first-rate production of a transporting musical."
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"'Spring Awakening’s original production' ingeniously integrated 19th-century and modern imagery to thrilling effect. Here, with the interpolation of signing and doubled actors, the integration suffers, having a third performance vocabulary to juggle. The score still sounds great, but it’s just not as fluidly performed to maximize the emotional impact...For all of the valid reservations one can have about this experiment, there’s still beauty to admire, if you’re willing to hear."
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"This revival would have been unjustifiable were it not for the brilliant idea of placing the story in the context of deafness and using many deaf actors to tell it...Deafness is not a random overlay on 'Spring Awakening' or a trendy gimmick hatched to sell it...I liked the new production better than the original."
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"Few things in theater are rarer than a production so fine that it cries out to be seen in spite of the show, but that’s the case with Deaf West’s 'Spring Awakening:' It ranks among the most emotionally charged renderings of a musical to come to Broadway in the past decade, one that all who love the genre should rush to see."
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"This intoxicating production kicks the power of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s propulsive musical into a higher sphere altogether. And yet it seems truer in spirit than even the original 2006 production to Frank Wedekind’s daring, scandal-making play about teens on the verge of a sexual breakdown...The only shadow cast here is of great musical-theater making. The lighting may be dappled but 'Spring Awakening' is brilliant."
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"In Deaf West's exhilarating reboot of the moody and stirring 2007 Tony winner, the repressed and rudderless kids are lifting more than their voices. They’re also raising their hands to express themselves — and casting a whole new spell. The show combines hearing and non-hearing actors who use American Sign Language. Some roles are played by two actors — one who sings, one who signs. Many in the cast do both at once. The result: Lines and lyrics look as poetic and provocative as they sound."
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"With 'Spring Awakening,' which marks Deaf West’s second major Broadway transfer, the company goes as far as to incorporate the deaf dimension into the plot of the hit musical, transforming a show about the explosive consequences of denying sex-ed to a conservative late-19th-century German community into a critique of deaf education policy at the same time. As such, Deaf West awakens something new in the show, which is not so much a revival as it is a reinvention."
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"Arriving so soon after Michael Mayer's viscerally impactful premiere production, this underpowered, unexceptionally sung version seems more of a special presentation than a wholesale reinvention...It's not so much the cast as the concept that only half works here...While the intent merits applause, the execution is not sufficiently fresh or Broadway-caliber to justify the swift return."
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