So the rumours are true. Spring Awakening the alt-rock musical which opened to rave reviews only two months ago has this week announced that the show will come to an end on 30th May 2009. A smash on Broadway, where it ran for over two years, Spring Awakening came to London in early January where it has a pre-West End run at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. The show was a sell out at that theatre and it was announced that on the back of amazing critical sucess that the show would transfer to the Novello theatre, where it would open its initial booking period up until October 31st 2009.I was lucky enough to see the show whilst it was at the Lyric and really enjoyed it. The music was catchy, despite the lyrics not being up to scratch. The cast was fantastic, the set was nicely designed and the lighting was some of the best I've seen in any show. The atmosphere in the auditorium was electric, and whilst I hate people talking during the show, one can't deny that everyone was enjoying themselves and the show which was being put on in front of them.
Spring Awakening was something that the West End needed; it was new, edgy, refreshing, shocking - many of the qualities which are associated with youth, and I feel that here lies one of the problems. The young people of London haven't taken to the show like they did in New York, and when your target audience doesn't flock to the theatre in droves, then you are always fighting an uphill battle. It was always going to be risky opening up this show in another country, and it is a real shame that this show wasn't a commercial success because it is relevant to the youth of today and it has substance.
I'm not sure the marketing campaign has been as direct as it could have been, but saying that I don't live in London and am slightly older than the target audience. I will say that I was one of the few people who was aware of this show before it came to the UK, but since it's arrival I have only seen reviews in high brow national newspapers. I'm not sure of the marketing strategies or budgets the producers for this musical had, but I certainly didn't see the cast on Jonathon Ross or Paul O'Grady - something which I have seen the cast of Wicked, Hairspray and more recently, Sister Act appear on. Now I know that Spring Awakening may not appeal to Jonathon Ross' or Paul O'Grady's key demographics, however I also didn't see the cast of Spring Awakening appear on T4 or in some teen mags which I'm sure would have got people talking. The only radio I've heard about this show was on Elaine Paige last weekend where Aneurin sang a song and answered a few questions about the show. It wasn't even a good song and the interview was quite frankly boring - there wasn't an energy there, and I still can't quite work out whos fault it was.
Someone has said that Spring Awakening is, at the moment "the right show, at the wrong time", and I completely agree with this comment. Kids need to see shows like this - they need to see that their problems are universal . They need to see a show that they can relate to. Spring Awakening is one such show, and it is just a shame that at the minute we are weathering an economic storm. As far as I am aware, most shows are struggling at the minute. There are empty seats for the majority of shows across the West End, and discount ticketing is now common place. It is a way of trying to coax people back to the theatre. At the minute I'm not sure if it is working completely.
If people are now seeing one or two shows a year as opposed to three or four, and if there are less tourists around then people are going to see shows they are familiar with. They will go and see the Phantoms and the Lion Kings, the Wickeds and the Hairsprays - in other words, they will go and see the already established shows. The vast majority will not go and see the smaller shows, however critically acclaimed they were. They want to know that they are getting something for their money. They want to go and see shows where they already know the story and the score. They want escapism while we steer our way out of this crisis, and until things get better then the West End will continue to only show conglomerate shows. The basic fact is that people at the minute would rather pay £60 per ticket to a show they know than go and see a show they know nothing about. And if they can't afford that price for a ticket then they simply wont go.
I would have hoped that the producers would have given this show more time to find its feet. By the time it will close on the West End, it will have only been running for 10 weeks. The simple fact is though that everything boils down to money, and it is clear that the producers don't want to take another risk, which isn't a bad thing because one risk has already failed, but it's definately not a good thing, because I now feel that other producers will look at this and think "if Spring Awakening can't succeed, then how the hell can our show?!" This is indeed a step backwards for West End theatre. A step which will take many years to recover from.
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