BroadwayGirlNYC: Ilse, Phaedra, & the Girl Inside
By: BroadwayGirl NYC Apr. 21, 2011
I have been thinking about Ilse.
Remember, the lonely artist girl from Spring Awakening, who was shut out by her family after fleeing from abuse? She's been in my dreams lately, both at night and my daydreams. I think about her un-tied hair, the men's white workshirt she wore, her bare feet and the wildflowers she brought as peace offering to Moritz. I picture the home from which she was banished, the angry words her father must have slung, and the helpless chill she felt that first night on the street. I am haunted not only by the notion of the pain she must have endured upon realizing she had been disowned, but also by the physical image of this girl, a specter really, who has recently reentered my consciousness and made me ache like she is real.
Her reappearance in my mind happened at a strange but logical moment -- in the midst of another play.
I went to see Jerusalem, by Jez Butterworth, at the Music Box Theatre this week. On the surface it's quite different from Spring Awakening; Jerusalem takes place in a small town in England in modern times, while Spring Awakening is set in Germany in the late 1800s. The protagonist of Jerusalem is a aging, quirky kind of vagrant, living out of a trailer in the forest; Spring Awakening centers around a brilliant young man whose genius, and its ensuing rebellion, ultimately lead to tragedy. But one thing that these two works have in common is a band of teenagers who are lost in their own angst, freewheeling and terrified, running to and away from any- and everything while seeking some kind of refuge from the world.
There's a girl in Jerusalem called Phaedra who made my breath catch the moment I saw her. She appears in a pale green silk nightgown, with what look like broken wings hanging from her back. She is ethereal, dreamlike, and appears to be floating. Her skin is so pale that it's practically transparent, and her hair a deep red that reminds me of rust. I feel shaken at her image, a combination of surprise and sadness -- like I'm seeing the ghost of someone I loved long ago and lost. I'm bewildered at first, trying to place her -- and then I realize that she's exactly as I've always pictured Ilse.
Of course, I have the visual memory of Lauren Pritchard, who originated the role on Broadway; I remember Emma Hunton well, too, who played Ilse when Spring Awakening closed at the Eugene O'Neill in 2009. When I say that I've pictured Ilse, I don't mean the actresses who portrayed her. I mean that I've imagined the spirit of the girl, created from wisps of memory of real young women who have suffered her pains. Of all the characters in Spring Awakening, it was Ilse that moved me the most. Her loneliness was so palpable, and her beauty so extraordinary and strange. I never experienced the torture that Ilse went through -- either at home where she was beaten or at the artists' colony where she was woken in the morning with a gun against her chest. Even so, the character became something more than the actresses I saw onstage. She implanted herself right into my heart.
I was stricken when I saw Phaedra, standing and singing with the same kind of far-off, beautiful voice that Ilse had. I was moved by her sad song, but it also brought a warm feeling to my chest that I realize now was gladness. You see, even though she was always there, I had forgotten to check in with that Ilse spirit that lodged itself in me when I first fell in love with Spring Awakening. I'd moved on with my life, gone to other shows and been introduced to countless other characters. But none has resonated so deeply and so powerfully as Ilse did. And now Phaedra, this new muse with whom I've been acquainted, has integrated herself into myconsciousness as well. Now they have combined in my imagination, into one beautiful being.
I promise to nurture her, and to visit her often. I refuse to wait another two years for an ingenue on a stage to remind me that she's there.
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