"Spring Awakening," the musical adaption of Frank Wedekind’s 1891 drama about the joys and dangers of high-hormonal adolescent yearning in rigid, Victorian-era Germany, closed on Broadway earlier this month — a victim, it has been said, of recession fallout.

But the U.S. touring version is coming to the Twin Cities next week, opening Tuesday at the Orpheum Theatre for eight performances through Feb. 1. This is the chance to see the show that cleaned up at the Tony Awards in 2007 (winning eight of them) and was hailed as a breakthrough musical in an era when everything new on Broadway has been sounding like a Disney cartoon.

"People have told us that we’ve reinvented the musical theater," said Steven Sater, who wrote the book and lyrics with composer Duncan Sheik.

Here's a video clip.

The adaptation has been fierce, though still faithful to Wedekind’s vision, Sater told MinnPost. That’s not surprising, since Wedekind’s original play is as difficult as it is important — a forerunner of expressionism and theater of the absurd, though still tied to the sometimes stilted trappings of 19^th century theater conventions.

Back in the 1970s, when serious theater was sometimes inflicted as well as performed, I saw an experimental staging of "Spring Awakening" — and, suffice to say, it was a long night. That’s despite a play that deals with masturbation, rape, suicide, and an unwanted pregnancy leading to death.

In Sater’s adaptation, the sex is consensual — and apparently fairly graphic — but the Victorian setting remains despite breakout songs that are distinctly, sometimes raucously, out of today’s American music. Sater explained the contrast this way:

"The play is engaged in the lives of these 19^th century children, but when they reach moments of great emotion, they step out in their own minds and walk into the present musically. Then as the song ends, they get pulled back into the confines of their own world."

"Spring Awakening." Jan. 27-Feb. 1. Orpheum Theatre. For more information and tickets, go here.