Written in 1891, Spring Awakening created a scandal for the 26 year old playwright, Frank Wedenkind (1864-1918). It took 16 years for German Censorship on the drama to be lifted and then with crucial concessions.1 In 1906 it was put on in Berlin by Marx Reinhardt. In England the play was banned from public performance until 1963. In its first performance at the National Theatre London in 1974 the lead role was taken by Veronica Quilligan from Rathmines. The play is a series of brief scenes dealing with the awakening of sexuality in three adolescents, Wendla, Moritz and Melchior.
This drama prefigures Freud’s “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” by 15 years. Freud himself commented on the piece at a meeting of the Wednesday Psychological Society in Vienna in 1907 (13th February).
