EDITOR’S NOTE: The following 3 1/2-star review was published in June 2010, after the opening of The Avenue Theater’s inaugural production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” The show is again being performed, through May 28, in repertory with Evolution Theatre’s “Breach.”
Since the remount, theater critic John Moore has gone back and re-reviewed the show, giving it four stars.
The ticket information at the bottom of this review pertains to the 2011 staging.
Just imagine: Long before John Cameron Mitchell unleashed Hedwig onto the world, he was playing Peter Pan for the Denver Center Theatre Company.
Hedwig is the archetypal, androgynous stage character Mitchell dreamed up in West Germany while visiting his father, the Army major general in charge of all U.S. military forces while the Berlin Wall was coming down.
Worlds apart, and yet Peter Pan and the transsexual glam-rocker might be seen as two halves of a whole: one outcast a boy defiantly resisting his place in the real world; the other outcast a girl desperately seeking her place in it.
“Hedwig and the Angry Inch” is a driving, punk-rock concert woven into a meaningful monologue in which our narrator tells the provocative tale of a boy named Hansel who, in order to be free from the oppression of East Berlin, is made to leave a piece of himself behind, and winds up abandoned in Kansas for it. Now called Hedwig, she’s touring from dive bar to salad bar, stalking the rock star who loved and then betrayed her.
This narrative, both trashy and astonishingly literate, is rooted in a mythological speech from Plato’s “The Symposium,” which asserts that there once were three human sexes: Man, woman and a union of the two — until Thor rained down lightening bolts to split the united, creating a sector of the human race that always will be seeking wholeness in the search for a missing half.
To Mitchell, a gay boy growing up in a conservative military family, that myth spoke profoundly to his ambivalence about the specificity of gender and sexuality. “Hedwig,” which he plans to bring to Broadway for the first time later this year, has attained cult status among the “Hedheads” because it still speaks with thunderbolt velocity to anyone still seeking that which might complete them — be that another person, or the piece that’s missing inside of them.
For only the second time, a Denver theater company has dared to mount “Hedwig,” and Nick Sugar is among the few performers who possesses the courage, chords and chops to make this spiteful yet vulnerable diva so achingly understandable. With platinum wig, lace-up boots and technicolor dreamcoat, Sugar delivers a riveting performance, perhaps the crowning achievement of a career filled with them.
And yet director Robert Wells’ staging comes off as cleaner and more muted than any “Hedwig” you may have seen. And that’s largely an environmental concession.
Hedwig is meant to be performed in a loud, fist-pumping rock club, not a pristine parlor like the Avenue Theater. A bar allows for the necessary antagonism that Hedwig builds up, then tears down, between herself and the audience. The LIDA Project staged “Hedwig” in a lesbian bar. In Colorado Springs, in a dive called Darkside. Even Mitchell’s mom once told me, “You need a really seedy place.”
The nemesis at the Avenue is plush seats that allow for audience passivity. Incongruously classy throw rugs. Relaxed, respectful silence. This is punk rock. Turn down the lights, turn up the amps and let the spit land where it may.
Hedwig is also more typically performed by a rock singer with perhaps some theatrical background, not the other way around. Sugar can’t fully shed his musical-theater training; it’s part of his presentational DNA. That’s not a criticism; but it results in a very different kind of Hedwig.
Rock singers scream. They’re sloppier, more primal — and that feels more real. Theatrical singers don’t miss a note. They actually care about pleasing their audience. It’s less visceral and doesn’t feel as dangerous — but at least we can make out the words.
Brian Freeland (who directed LIDA’s 2002 staging) provides grainy black-and-white video that enhances the concert feel, especially splashed against set designer’s Tina Anderson’s black wall that also illuminates the visages of glam heroes Lou Reed and David Bowie. The narrative is peppered with Denver-specific lines that draw huge laughs.
Backing Sugar is a live band that brings to great life Stephen Trask’s gorgeous, gritty score, which ranges from all-out rock to ’60s singalong pop to country-tinged to devastating ballads.
Hedwig’s only acting partner, though, is her Croatian husband Yitzak (Amanda Earls), a drag queen and backup singer upon whom Hedwig has passed a curse that was long ago bestowed upon her.
By the end of this brief but gargantuan journey, Sugar deposits the audience right where it’s his job to take them: (Finally) standing and waving along to the anthemic “Midnight Radio.”
So despite slight reservations, catharsis is achieved here in a way few stage productions attain. What begins with an audience sitting on its hands ends with an audience standing on its feet.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Hedwig and the Angry Inch” ***1/2 (out of four stars)
Rock musical. The Avenue Theater, 417 E. 17th Ave. Written by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask. Directed Robert Wells. Starring Nick Sugar and Amanda Earls. Through Aug. 7. 1 hour, 35 minutes. “Hedwig” performs at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; plus 7:30 p.m. May 16. “Breach” performs at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and May 23. $22-$25. 303-321-5925 or
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This weekend’s theater openings
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” An off-beat musical comedy about six awkward, ambitious adolescents who confront the pitfalls of puberty while spelling their way through the biggest night of their young lives. Through Aug. 22. Backstage Theatre, 121 S. Ridge St., Breckenridge, 970-453-0199 or
“Gunslinger: The Legend of Billy the Kid” The Cripple Creek summer tradition of classic, substantive melodrama returns with this fast-paced, 1906 tale. Events conspire against our 15-year-old hero, Billy — including the murder of his parents and his brief turn to outlaw. Through Sept. 18. Presented by the Thin Air Theatre Company at the Butte Theatre, 139 E. Bennett Ave., Cripple Creek, 719-235-8944 or butteoperahouse
“Guys and Dolls” Classic musical fable about a New York grifter who wagers he can get a dame to go with him to Havana. Songs include “Luck Be a Lady” and “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.” Through July 3. Crested Butte Mountain Theatre, 403 Second St., 970- 349-0366 or
“Hair” The rock musical that defined the ’60s generation through a group of young bohemians struggling for generational and personal identity during the Vietnam War. Some nudity. Through Aug. 27. Lake Dillon Theatre Company, 176 Lake Dillon Drive, 970-513-9386 or
“The Ladies Man” In this fast-paced farce, freely adapted from “Tailleur Pour Dames” by Georges Feydeau, a little lie leads to mind- boggling chaos, several near catastrophes and an improbable succession of slamming doors. Through Aug. 28. Creede Repertory Theatre, 124 N. Main St., 719-658-2540, 1-866-658-2540, or
“The Lady With All the Answers” David Rambo’s play is set late on a 1975 night in advice columnist Ann Landers’ Chicago apartment, when an ironic twist of events leaves her writing a column dealing with a new kind of heartbreak: Her own. Through July 25. Little Theatre of the Rockies, Norton Theatre, on the University of Northern Colorado campus (Gray Hall, Eighth Avenue and 19th Street), Greeley, 970-351-2200 or
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