It’s possible to admire something while also being unmoved by it. That’s my reaction to "Spring Awakening," the excellent touring musical that moved Tuesday into the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis for a run that concludes Sunday night.

The show by pop singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik and writer/lyricist Steven Sater is a wonderfully inspired take on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play about adolescent sexuality and non-conformity in Victorian-era Germany.

The biggest inventive twist was the decision to keep the original time frame — a stylized Old World era with boys in breeches and knee socks and girls in modest shifts — while depicting their adolescent anxiety and rebelliousness in MTV-age sound.

The conceit is established instantly in a scene that takes place in a Latin class, the boys droning their recitations before a switch-wielding schoolmaster. Then they pull wireless microphones out of their woolen jackets and erupt into a ferocious, jagged number that expresses their pent-up frustration. Seconds later, they are 19^th century schoolboys once again.

All this takes place on what could be mistaken for a raggedy music-club stage, with some audience members and off-scene performers sharing stage-side risers and a small rock band supported by some string players set up against a brick wall adorned with bric-a-brac. The performances are hugely choreographed, with every facial tic and gesture crisply executed, and the whole thing involves a stunning lighting design using neon and cascading drop-string lights in addition to an enormous battery of the usual theatrical instruments.

So why was I unmoved? While the performances are excellent, the central trio — Wendla (Christy Altomare), Moritz (Blake Bashoff) and Melchior (Kyle Riabko) — seem to be more representatives of youthful attitudes than people of depth. And, indeed, the whole show seems to unfold like one of those story-line music videos, where you get the point with just a few quick slashes and images.

But it’s still very entertaining and often hugely funny, even though the details are tragic. And according to Fred Krohn, general manager for the Historic Theatre Group that operates the Hennepin Avenue theaters, this is a show that seems to be drawing a younger audience — a good thing for the future of the business. The show doesn’t hesitate to display nudity, masturbation, homosexuality and lovemaking bordering on rape, but that’s hardly shocking these days — and not nearly so graphic as, say, theater in the 1970s.

For information or tickets call 612-339-7007 or 612-673-0404 or go here.

Related content: 'Spring Awakening': Breakthrough musical opens Tuesday by David Hawley, Jan. 21, 2009