idk if you’re still interested here hearing peoples takes on this but when i saw spring for the first time (obc bootleg) hanschen seemed really flirty but not predatory, just a horny teenager like the rest of the boys. then after being exposed to the show more (national tour and dwsa) i started to see hanschen and the vineyard scene as a manifestation of hanschen having absolutely no regard for ernst’s feelings/emotions/comfort. (1/?)
(cont:) i think this speaks greatly to different actors portrayals of hans. however after working the show in person and seeing it over and over for a month and paying attention to the audience’s reactions, it’s clear that most (straight) people who see the show don’t see it like this at all because sheik/sater intended on it to be read as predatory from an audience perspective. on several occasions working it live, audience members would wolf-whistle at the cast (during the vineyard scene) and laugh at the actor playing ernst’s reactions to anything. it was really disheartening to see actors who tried to be completely honestly to this show and this scene laughed at because of the gay nature of the scene. like i understand that the scene is lighthearted and can be funny but there is a difference between laughing because these teenagers are in love and have no idea what they’re doing and then laughing because gay relationships are funny. i’ve read wedekinds play, and as much as i can appreciate sheik/saters work on spring, one of the things they butchered was the way hans was meant to be read. i think that sometimes drastic changes need to be made to make a work accessible to the general public, but making things accessible doesn’t always means stripping them down to their bare minimum and then completely getting rid of a point that wedekind explicitly makes to comment on the main relationship in the show. like why would wedekind bother creating the characters of hans and ernst at all besides to create foils to wendla and melchior. *mic drop* lol
thanks for sharing your thoughts! i’m always accepting more takes on anything i post here. :)
in doing some review of content from sater and rewatches of the musical i feel i’m becoming more and more convinced of this mutually enforced perception of predation between the text and the audience. what is comforting, though, is that this still doesn’t seem inevitable to me, and there are hänschens and ernsts out there playing this with sincerity, and the text as written, while biased toward humor & predation, does not make that the only viable reading for actors to give. wedekind’s intent still manages to shine through the cracks in many cases. unfortunately it tends to shine only in the eyes of other queer folks who recognize the relationship for what it was meant to be.
it’s certainly disheartening, as you say, to know that what should be a sincere moment is so often belittled and demeaned. i hope for more diverse and sympathetic portrayals in future stagings.
