On Monday, April 7th, I attended the new Broadway production of what Rolling Stone has called 'the best rock 'n roll musical', 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch', starring Neal Patrick Harris.
Now, before I write a few lines about the performance I should admit that I have been an unabashed Hedwig fan since seeing the movie based on the original off-Broadway production at least a dozen years ago. I have seen it done live twice, both times by a small Toronto theatre group, and have listened to the original cast recording CD to the point where I know most songs by heart, and then some. (Yes, I do sing along, loudly, to 'Angry Inch'...) And I love those songs... Coming into the performance, I was thus predisposed to enjoy any half-decent live performance of the songbook. This turned out to be much, much more.
For the uninitiated amongst you, 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' is set up as a rock show by Hedwig and her band during which she tells the audience her life story. The key element of that story: in the early late-80's, she underwent a sex-change operation (he was Hansel at the time) so she could marry a US GI and escape East Berlin for the US of A. The sex-change operation was botched, the result being an angry inch... The Angry Inch is also Hedwig's back-up band, as she eventually becomes a rock 'n roll, if not star of stage and screen, then performer.
As 'Hedwig' is mostly a one, ehm..., -person show, it obviously has to rely on the performance of the lead to make it work as more than a glorified concert. And Neal Patrick Harris was amazing. Barely recognisable under the make-up and, of course, the wigs (more on that below), NPH's performance was a physical tour de force. He pranced around the stage belting out Hedwig standard after standard, climbing columns to each side of the stage and negotiating stairs at the back of the stage as well as some split stages. All of this done, of course, in four-inch gold rock star/stripper gold-coloured platform heels.
He also captured the essence of the character: a rock 'n roll diva (at least in her world, or, at the very least, in her head) who is quite amusing and somewhat self-deprecating in her dialogue with the audience in general, but a mean, self-important bitch to her band (especially her husband Ytzhak) and to selected lucky audience members.
However, it is during the dénouement of the musical, where Hedwig achieves a sort of emotional epiphany, that NPH's performance reaches a different level. He gives poignancy to the character, making her much more than the caricature she always teeters on becoming, at a level that did not quite come through in the movie (and certainly did not in the Toronto production). NPH conveys this emotional transformation in Hedwig purely through physical acting and facial expressions, as there is no dialogue when this happens, only two songs that do not directly reflect Hedwig's internal struggle. Everything has to be conveyed physically and NPH nails it.
One of the main supporting characters in 'Hedwig' is, of course, her wig. In the movie (and I suspect the original production), Hedwig mostly wore one gigantic, large near-bleached blonde wig. In this production, she starts off with a large wig, which is, however, nowhere near as imposing as the movie version. She then goes through several wigs, which, interestingly, progressively become shorter and more sober as she approaches her emotional apotheosis.
Beyond NPH's performance (and his wigs), the production was also solid musically and technically. While Hedwig's banter was adjusted to reflect actual time and physical setting (the Belasco Theatre), I did not note any changes to the songbook. The tone of some of the music differed a bit, as several of the numbers, notably 'Sugar Daddy', were played somewhat 'harder' than in other versions I have heard. The Angry Inch, as a band, was tight and polished.
One of the running gags throughout was that Hedwig was booked at the last minute as a replacement for 'Hurt Locker: The Musical', cancelled after one night, and that they kept the sets. The stage did look like the aftermath of a couple of bombs going off, somewhat post-apocalyptic. The front of the stage was book-ended by a representation on remnants of the Berlin Wall. In a way, it was a fairly sparse staging.
My one disappointment I was a bit disappointed with the audience, which was a lot more staid than I expected. While there was a lot of cheering and whooping after every number, not a lot of heads were bopping along to the music. Nobody was dressed up. (Maybe the dress-up crowd were all at Lady Gaga's gig at the Roseland... And now that I think about it, Gaga owes a lot to Hedwig. And to Diane Dufresne, who did the same stuff 40+ years ago, but I digress mightily.) It felt like the crowd was here to see a Broadway musical, while completely forgetting about the rock 'n roll part. I also suspect that there was at least a fair chunk of the crowd there to see Barney, rather than Hedwig. Who knows? Some may have been there only to see Doogie Howser in drag...
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.
