HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH:
Neil Patrick Harris leads a bigger, bolder, louder revival of Broadway's oddest ode to rock n roll

by Jim Testa

HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH
Book by John Cameron Mitchell, music & lyrics by Stephen Trask
Belasco Theater, NYC

Neil Patrick Harris doesn’t just break all the rules of show biz, he rewrites them. He started as a child star and somehow skipped the drugs, angst, and bankruptcy that usually accompany that profession to transition seamlessly into adult roles. He came out as gay and rather than have it ruin his career, he landed a long-running hit television show. He did Sondheim when no one had any idea he could sing or dance, and then brought those talents to revitalizing the Tony Awards the way no Broadway star had done before.

So it’s no surprise that Harris completely reinvents the role of the “internationally ignored song stylist” and reluctant transsexual Hedwig in the Broadway revival of “Hedwig & The Angry Inch” and makes the show even bigger, grander, more flamboyant, funnier, and more heartbreaking than the original. Performing eight shows a week without an understudy, the only question is: How many lucky people will be able to see this performance before Neil Patrick Harris – like Hedwig herself – melts into a pile of frowsy wigs, soiled cocktail dresses, and sweat?

John Cameron Mitchell has both updated and expanded his book (which remains brutally funny and exploding with double entendres and sly comic bits,) and director Michael Mayer (“Spring Awakening,” “American Idiot”) has substantially restaged the show, making it in fact a “bigger” production in every way. Mitchell, with his boyish, effeminate looks, might have been a bit more believable as “the little slip of a German boy” who seduces an American GI in East Berlin, but Harris – older, tougher, and far less pretty - completely makes the role his own, more a survivor than a victim (even if his East German accent tends to come and go, and occasionally resembles a Scottish bray.)
In the original, a threadbare Hedwig and his scruffy band the Angry Inch were playing the lounge of a midtown Holiday Inn, next door to Madison Square Garden. In this production, Hedwig’s truly on Broadway for a one night only performance at the actual Belasco Theater, using the militarized set of “Hurt Locker: The Musical” (“opened yesterday, closed at intermission.”) (Look around the theater if you go; there are a few leftover Playbills for the fictitious flop that are hilarious.)

John Cameron Mitchell played Hedwig as a pitiful loser vainly trying to keep a sinking music career afloat. This Hedwig has costumes and wigs that rival Cher’s (Harris makes his entrance by descending from the rafters in a winged robe that’s somewhere between Aretha Franklin and “Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”) The new script tosses in lots of inside jokes about Broadway (like how Hedwig landed the show “by getting down on my knees” to a big producer,) a few digs at the Belasco, and several funny digs at the Tony’s. In this production, Hedwig’s onetime protege (and now tormentor) Tommy Gnosis stages his comeback concert in Times Square, not the Garden, but we can still hear his solipsistic stage patter every time someone opens the door at the back of the stage.

The role of Hedwig’s much put upon husband Yitzhak has been expanded substantially too, and Lena Hall positively shines in the role, displaying not just impeccable comic timing but also adding backing vocals and even taking a few stunning solo turns. All of the music is provided by Hedwig’s onstage backing band, composed of Croatian musicians with unpronounceable names (Justin Craig, Matt Duncan, Tim Mislock and Peter Yanowitz.)

Stephen Trask’s music is just about the only thing that hasn’t changed, and it still impresses, from the glammy hard rock numbers like “Angry Inch” (describing the sad results of Hedwig’s botched sex change surgery) to the wistful ballad “Wicked Little Town.” If anything, the rock songs are delivered with a little more punk rock punch now, although you’ll probably leave the theater humming the softer songs like “Origin of Love” and “Wig In A Box.” And whoever wins American Idol this year should immediately run into a studio and record a cover of “Midnight Radio,” one of the great unsung rock ‘n’ roll anthems of the Nineties.

“Hedwig & The Angry Inch” is a story about the things that divide us, whether it’s the wall that once separated East from West Berlin or the thin line that differentiates men from women. The moral of the story is simple as well: Rock ‘n’ roll can tear down those walls and make us all one. Raise your arms, brothers and sisters, and listen to the midnight radio.

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