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"Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Review"
The Independent, September 21, 2000
Any Harry Potter fans under the impression that Hedwig is a spin-off production based on
the career of the young wizard's faithful owl could be in for a nasty surprise. She is, in
fact, an East German drag queen that would make The Rocky Horror Show's Frank N Furter
come over all unnecessary.
Kitted out in pink-fringed cowboy boots, stone-wash denim frock and Farrah Fawcett wig,
she looks like a hybrid of Dolly Parton and Courtney Love. The action is played out in a
flea-pit of a venue (swiftly relocated from Manhattan to King's Cross) with a rickety
stage, a table and chair and a payphone. Describing herself as an "internationally
ignored song stylist", Hedwig, played with pathos by Michael Cerveris, conveys pain
and world- weariness.
Through a series of songs and anecdotes, she laments her unhappy childhood, her doomed
career and her luckless love life. As a child in East Berlin, Hedwig (or Hansel as she was
then known) would listen to American rock radio with her head in the oven. There was a
brief period of happiness as the "crypto-homo rockers" Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and
David Bowie became the centre of her world. But then Luther arrived, a brutal opportunist
bearing candy and a proposal of marriage. After a botched sex change - hence "the
angry inch" of thetitle - the pair left for the US where she was promptly dumped.
Next came the fling with a wannabe rockstar who "maintained a near-perfect ignorance
of the front of me" and stole all her songs.
Hedwig's life may have been marked by tragedy, but she is no dying swan. As with any
self-respecting drag queen, she has a satisfying bitchy streak. Attempting to excuse her
oafish roadie-turned-lover Yitzak, she hisses, "When I met him he wanted to be a
model - a foot model, maybe". Indeed, John Cameron Mitchell's script fizzes with
smart one-liners. Asked by some po-faced passer-by what poor creature had to die for her
to have her fur coat, Hedwig quips, "My Aunt Trudy".
There are moments of high-mindedness, too - particularly in the allusions to Plato's
Symposium. Seeing pop music played out in the theatre can often be excruciating but not
here. Songs performed by Hedwig's band, also known as The Angry Inch, deftly plunder a
range of genres from indie- pop to country to heavy metal. Hedwig herself is a stunningly
versatile singer, one moment playing the lovelorn diva, the next the sprightly pop
princess.
As a musical, Hedwig has it all: melodrama, pathos, searing humour and a handful of
fantastic songs. Move over Rocky Horror and make way for a brand new cult.
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