Director communicates passion of UNLV’s ‘Spring’s Awakening’

Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s adult play “Spring’s Awakening” (penned, give or take a few adaptations, by German author Frank Wedekind in 1891) feels childlike, as if it were written by the main characters, a group of 14-year-olds. It takes seriously the pains of adolescence in ways, I suspect, that most grown-ups don’t.

We feel assured that director Kenn McLeod knows what he’s doing almost immediately when we meet a group of schoolgirls (all University of Nevada, Las Vegas students) who easily project the naivete and unbridled energy of youth.

The lightness in tone changes when we’re introduced to Melchior (John Maltese), a student full of sexual and existentialist knowledge that he doesn’t know how to handle. Maltese projects, at first, a carefree, young leading man’s appearance. But he communicates so thoroughly his character’s angst and need for adult guidance that we pity him.

The adults, for the most part, are not the heroes of this piece. They’re more concerned about their own needs to notice how much their loved ones are suffering.

Dana Kreitz as Isle uses her restless body language to suggest youth; yet, her growing awareness of her sensuality makes clear that the girl is headed for trouble. Joseph Price is frightfully stern as the father of a boy who can’t cope with academic demands, and Dhyana Dahl is alternately likable and despicable as she does the best she can (which isn’t good enough) in dealing with her daughter’s sexual curiosities.

It’s unfortunate, though, that Price and Dahl also play Melchior’s parents. No doubt it’s a calculated symbol, but it’s miscalculated. And a gay relationship comes out of nowhere. We don’t feel the progression, so that a late-in-the-play kiss feels tacked on.

Frank Strebel’s set — a schoolyard in decay, whose wallcracks suggest a society in peril — towers the small theater with a huge tree that has about a dozen dead limbs reaching out nervously to the sky. Jeremy Hodges’ lights are pictorial and filled with cathedral-like shafts of melancholy auroras.

McLeod understands what’s at stake in this play. You suspect he has a personal passion for the material. His major achievement is in communicating that passion to his audience.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat @aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.