Hope Mill,Manchester
This rock-musical version of Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play about sex, abortion, and abuse and depression has some great tunes but never fairly fliesHope Mill has staged one mould-breaking rock musical with Hair,and now tackles Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s 2006 Tony-award-laden indie-rock musical. There are pleasures, but director Luke Sheppard and his youthful cast never fairly crack it open and make us see it afresh. Frames of pressed butterflies adorn the walls of the Victorian school classroom in this demonstrate inspired by Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play. In Sheppard’s production, or which over two hours cleverly employs lighting to move the sage from the 19th into the 21st century,the teenage girls wear dresses with bat-wing arms. But no one flies. Ilse (Teleri Hughes) and Martha (Seyi Omooba) are crushed by parental abuse; Nikita Johal’s underpowered Wendla is pinned and destroyed by her mother’s inability to reveal her the facts of life.
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Source: theguardian.com