SPRING AWAKENING: A SIN OF OMISSION
EXCERPT FROM REVIEW IN THEATRE JOURNAL (MAY 2011)
BY MICHAEL Y. BENNETT

Produced by Centripetus Theatre Company - the joint company of director Toby Bercovici and choreographer Madelyne Camera - this Off-Off-Broadway production at the Looking Glass Theatre...demonstrated that Wedekind's play is still relevant in the twenty-first century. This production did not meditate solely on the sexually repressive society, but also examined points of contact among children and between children and adults. Bercovici's unique vision was realized through the creation of four dances...as well as through a new ending. Camera's unique genre-breaking choreography captured the intellectual, emotional, and bodily paradoxes in ourselves, in society, and in life. Through dance and by having the children and adults played by the same actors, the teachers were portrayed as childish, petty, and comical in comparison with the maturing children... Bercovici and Camera's production challenged the sexuality-driven reading of Wedekind's play. The audience was confronted with palpable desire. Usually, the desire is sexual; here, however, it was the desire to ease the tension between progress and regression. The audience ultimately left the theatre both with a sense of childlike wonder and with the burden of adult responsibility re-instilled.