Welcome back, Drama Group! For 40 years, Robert Bauer helmed the Germantown Community Theater. Following a few years’ hiatus, the troupe is back to producing two shows a year under its new, four-member board.

“Spring Awakening” by Frank Wedekind opened this weekend. A rebellious roue in real life, Wedekind lays bare the fluid, sexual riot of puberty as a way to attack bourgeoisie propriety. Scandalous in its day — and frothy now — you glimpse erotic yearning, child abuse, sadism, self-pleasuring, and homosexual eroticism. (Mercifully, a suicide and a botched, back-alley abortion take place off-stage).

Written in 1891, this German play has had a checkered production history, seldom produced and, even then, censored or watered down. But the smash hit American musical version of “Spring Awakening” hauled in eight Tony Awards in 2006, and rescued the play from obscurity.

The musical adaptation brightens Wedekind’s script. There, the joyousness of youthful rebellion overtakes tragic events; catchy, choral rock numbers have you dancing in your seat. But the Drama Group show, like the original play, is lugubrious and more in line with Wedekind’s tone.

Three star-crossed youths assume center stage. Melchior Gabor (Jay Adams) is the play’s tragic hero. A precocious youth, he stands out from the other children, an atheist and knowledgeable about the world through reading. In particular, he has figured out the nature of human sexuality and feels free to act.

But his friend Moritz Stiefel (Mikel Wright) is troubled. Moritz struggles to succeed in school and is disturbed by the dawning of sexual urges, believing them to be wicked. When Melchior writes an essay to help Moritz understand sexual intercourse, it leads to tragic consequences.

Wendla Bergmann (Rebecca Gomezrueda) begs her mother to explain to her how babies are born, but Wendla is never given an actionable explanation. With the onset of sexual feelings and the need to feel loved, she wanders about in a daze, an innocent white woolly ewe fit for slaughter.

Though Melchior causes tragedy wherever he goes, adult society is held to blame. Sonnenstich (“Sun Stroke”), the school headmaster, is oppressive; his teaching staff are bores, with German names like “Death of Flies,” “Belt of Hunter” and “Very Thick.” If not for Fanny Gabor (Victoria Anne), Melchior’s kindly mother, the portrayal of callous adults would be so heavy-handed that “Spring Awakening” would have much in common with an agitprop, propaganda play.

The production requires the audience to give the play’s dialogue full attention. The schoolkids are in distress before the play begins. You “walk in on it,” as it were, and you strain to understand their preexisting relationships and the reasons for their unhappiness.

The pace picks up in Act 2. Director CJ Higgins makes dramatic use of a scrim screen to portray the behind-the-scenes beastliness of adult authorities. Presenting these figures as faceless, dark silhouettes behind a blank screen is shot through with humor, and conveys their distant and uninvolved obtuseness.

Thanks in part to the musical adaptation, “Spring Awakening” now has a more favorable standing. Especially in the dramatic and concluding cemetery scene, some see the beginnings of German Expressionism and Social Problem theater.

The Drama Group is located at 6001 Germantown Ave., in the auditorium of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown. “Spring Awakening” will run through Nov 23. Tickets available at the door and online at  www.groupthedrama.com .