Blake Bashoff in “Spring Awakening”

Spring Awakening is so earnest and so consciously stylized that at some key moments, there’s a temptation to stop taking it seriously and instead succumb to laughter.

After all, what we’re watching are late 19th century German schoolchildren discovering their sexuality for the first time, all the while gyrating and head-banging to decidedly contemporary, emo-intense lyrics like “We’ve all got our junk, and my junk is you” or, say, “Touch me/Just like that/And that, oh yeah/Now that’s heaven.” But for every time the show teeters on the edge of ridiculous, there are many more instances of true emotional impact and glimmers of musical theater innovation.

Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s rock musical cleaned up at the Tonys back in 2007 and is now touring the country with a stop at the Kennedy Center. With so many cookie cutter musicals and anemic remakes coming out of Broadway, it feels almost a privilege to get a glimpse of one of the more experimental productions to find some New York success. Bill T. Jones’ jerky, explosive choreography (which is particularly arresting during the rebellious, ensemble-driven number “Totally Fucked”) and the diverse collection of songs, from the plaintive “Mama Who Bore Me” to the angst-ridden anthem, “Don’t Do Sadness”, push along a piece that can run thin on plot and character development, but is consistently high on expressionism.