Chicago Stage Review

“HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH” SING-A-LONG!

ONE NIGHT ONLY! Saturday, March 27, 2010

@ Wilmette Theatre

Wilmette Theatre :: More Than Movies

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

ATC announces a second extension for its current production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.  The extension will run Wednesday - Friday at 8pm, and Saturday at 8pm and 11pm, until June 13.  Hedwig has already broken this season’s box office record and is on track to be the highest grossing production in ATC’s history. 

Read ChicagoStageReview’s 4 STAR review of this brilliant production here!

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Chicago Stage Review

Read ChicagoStageReview’s Exclusive Feature Another Look At Hedwig here! 

Another Look At Hedwig - Chicago Stage Review

”Hedwig and the Angry Inch” extended through June 13!!!

@ American Theater Company

1909 West Byron St.

773-409-4125.   

American Theater Company | 1909 W Byron Chicago, IL 60613 | Box Office (773) 409-4125

ATC EXTENDS

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH 

Due to ticket demand, performances have been added through May 31, 2009!

American Theater Company announces the addition of new performance dates for its hit production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, directed by Artistic Director PJ Paparelli.  The production has added eight performances and is extended through May 31, 2009 at American Theater Company, 1909 W Byron in Chicago. 

Tickets for the week-long extension are now on sale through the box office, American Theater Company www.atcweb.org and 773.409.4125. 

Winner of the 2001 Obie Award and Outer Circle Critics Award for best Off-Broadway Musical, Hedwig and the Angry Inch tells the story of a young East German who discovers that the only way to escape communism and come to the United States is to give up a little part of himself. Yes, through a bit of surgery, Hansel becomes Hedwig, marries, and embarks on the adventure of a lifetime.  In its first rock musical ever, American Theater Company transforms its theatrical warehouse into an underground nightclub for a concert event not to be missed.

Read ChicagoStageReview’s 4 STAR review of this brilliant production here! 

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Chicago Stage Review

And order your tickets ASAP! 

American Theater Company | 1909 W Byron Chicago, IL 60613 | Box Office (773) 409-4125

By Venus Zarris

“My sex change operation got botched. My guardian angel fell asleep at the watch. Now all I’ve got is a Barbie Doll crotch. I’ve got an angry inch!”

From the stage to the screen and then back again to the stage, Hedwig and the Angry Inch transcends punk, gay, rock, transgender, camp, queer, cabaret. It touches so many levels of the human experience through one of the most unconventional stories. But to take this brilliance on is to take on something iconic. The writer/originator of the roll of Hedwig, John Cameron Mitchell, created one of the most incredible and completely textured characters ever presented.

Devotees of the film not only telegraph every song and every line but every nuance and every inflection. They cheer with Hedwig’s remarkable drive. Their hearts break with Hedwig’s tragic pitfalls. They are carried on an intoxicating wave of storytelling, leading them to an inevitable love affair with this most marvelous and grotesque anti-hero.

Given the state of our comparative minds, producing this play has ‘impossible’ written all over it. But American Theater Company partners with About Face Theatre to triumphantly achieve the impossible.

I LOVE the film. I took a friend with who is even more an aficionado/devoted fan of the film than myself. I thought, between the two of us we would be the ultimate litmus test for this bold undertaking. Well, we laughed, cheered, hooted and hollered. At one point I looked at my friend and there were even tears. When my friend proclaimed that he will be going back several times before the run is over, the verdict was in.

This incarnation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch delivers the insanely remarkable goods!

As a gay person and a writer for the gay press for several years, allow me to wax poetic about the depth of this material. Mitchell captures more than just a tragically transgendered punk rocker on a quest to gain recognition for the stolen hit songs that he/she penned. Mitchell captures the struggle for identity in a fluctuating world, one where you are always at least a quantum leap outside of the realms of acceptability. He captures the eccentric twists and turns of a life lived without a roadmap, the search for love in a world where love is denied and the depth of agonizing self-examination that goes into our inherent deviant discrepancy with the norms that surround us.

I know as many, if not more, straight people who adore Hedwig and the Angry Inch as I know queer people who love it. It appeals to anyone who has felt alienated, anyone who has felt like a freak of some sort-at some point and anyone who simply relishes beguiling storytelling. But, as much as this belongs to everyone, if there is a group ownership of this character and his/her story – it belongs to the queer community. Perhaps resides with is more the right term.

Just as all are welcome to bask in the tropical paradise of Key West, all are welcome to take in the wonders of Hedwig. But, just as that island has been a bastion for the queer community long before the question of proposition 8 was a gleam in it’s author’s eyes, Hedwig has been a champion of our queer experience.

Hedwig is an extreme example perhaps, but our darling anti-hero nonetheless.

That said; let’s talk theater. Without an incredible lead, productions of Hedwig and the Angry Inch are little more than karaoke renderings of catchy songs and funny scenes. But Nick Garrison becomes the commanding and captivating character of Hedwig, baring it all and going out on one of the most tenuous theatrical limbs at full speed and without a net.

I have seen staged productions of Hedwig where a talented lead appears to be a ‘stand-in’ for this daunting role, relying on the audiences’ imagination and retention of the original characterization to fill in the blanks. Garrison, on the other hand, takes us there completely. We are not fantasizing about Mitchell while watching Garrison. Rather we are swept into the moment with him, in all of his garish, gaudy and bitchy splendor.

He becomes the exquisitely mutilated, brazen yet vulnerable outcast, stunning in his control of the moment while in the face of his on-going defeats.

Sadieh Rifai compliments with a solidly angry and downtrodden Yitzak. The Band compliments with excellent musical skill. But this is, for all intense and purpose, a one man/woman show and Garrison wins us over through his marathon performance of beautiful singing, twisted shtick, quirky camp explosive anger and honest emotion.

Director P J Paparelli compiles a wonderful technical team that transforms the venue at American Theater Company into a seedy nightclub. Paparelli realizes the story and atmosphere with exacting detail and fearless dedication.

If you are a fan of Hedwig and the Angry Inch you will delight in the intimate experience of this rendition, told by artists who care for the source material as much as you do yourself. If you are a novice to Hedwig, you will be won over by this all encompassing experience and Garrison’s incredible performance.

Do not miss this exceptional production.

4 STARS

(”Hedwig and the Angry Inch” extended through May 31!!! at American Theater Company, 1909 West Byron St. 773-409-4125.)

American Theater Company

Hedwig and the Angry Inch production photos by Michael Brosilow

Essay and Painting By Genevieve Crotz

Introduction by Venus Zarris

I have the on-going pleasure of speaking in front of writing classes at Illinois Central College. I am asked to talk about argument in writing and give practical examples of it in my reviews and essays.

In one class I read part of a review of a previous staged production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. After that class, I was approached by a student who not only informed me that she loves the film, but also showed me a tattoo that she shares with the character of Hedwig.

After the delightful conversation, I was told by the professor that Genevieve Crotz is one of the most gifted writers that she has ever taught. As the Facebook fates would have it, Genevieve found me on-line. I told her that there was going to be a staged production of Hedwig in Chicago and that she should plan to come and see it. She told me that, as much as she would love to, she couldn’t swing the trip. I asked her to write her experience of the film.

In contrast to my urban-homo perspective, Genevieve is a straight young woman living Peoria. But this story’s influence and impact are, for her, no less profound. Here is what Genevieve shared…

 Another Look At Hedwig

 In the world we live in today, nothing can be taken at face value. Several years ago, I was presented with the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I immediately saw the cover and asked what it was about. I was provided with a summary of the general plot: a man named Hansel gets a sex change operation in order to marry his sugar daddy and get out of Communist East Berlin. After a failed sex change, he becomes Hedwig and moves to America, starts a band, falls in love, is spurned, and pursues his jilted lover across the country on an unconventional concert tour. Upon hearing this summary, my immediate response was, “OK?” I watched the film not knowing what to expect, and when it was over I still found myself asking the question, “What is it about?” 

 I recognized that the story was deeper than the plot, but I could not make the connection between the unfamiliar characters and, what was to me, an unfamiliar lifestyle. Over the course of the next month of my life, I watched the movie about six more times. There was something about it that touched me so deeply, but it seemed as though that something was hiding just beyond what I already understood.

 Finally, one night I was watching the scene in which Hedwig comforts Tommy after a fight with his parents. Hedwig speaks of her concept of true love. Throughout the scene, Tommy tries to hit a certain note in a song.  Tommy repeatedly sings, “Look what you’ve done.” Hedwig goes on to talk about her belief that true love is eternal because it creates something that was previously absent in a person. Tommy immediately tries to hit the note again and fails. 

 Eventually, Hedwig reaches a moment of inspiration in which she paints a silvery cross on Tommy’s forehead. Offering him a mirror, Hedwig positions the reflection in such a way that half of her face is covered by the other half of Tommy’s face. As I watched, I realized that Hedwig had found her other half. 

 Tears sprang up in my eyes as, a moment later, I watched Tommy move the mirror to reflect only his own face. Again, he sings the words, “Look what you’ve done.” This time he hits the note. My heart literally hurt upon the realization that Tommy is not inspired by Hedwig’s theory of love, but with the new vision she provides of his own identity. For this reason, Hedwig finds and loses her other half in a matter of moments.

 After watching this scene, the entire movie came into a whole different perspective for me. The story of Hedwig cannot be chalked up to a mere movie about a botched sex change. The movie is a universal story for anyone who lacks self-confidence and loses themselves in the struggle to save face.

 It is so easy to allow others to control the way we feel about ourselves. We invest our time and effort, our hopes and dreams, into the hands of other people with whom we choose to make relationships. When these people hurt us, we can very easily lose who we are, what drives us, and the reasons we go on living. Hedwig loses all these things, but she shows us that sometimes it takes the very person who has hurt you most to show you the way back to yourself.

 The movie’s closing scene reinforces this message by showing a stripped, dazed, and reborn version of the individual shown throughout the entire move. Is she Hedwig, or is she Hansel? Is she male, or is she female? Perhaps the most important question of all: does it matter? In Hedwig’s case, sometimes finding yourself means starting all over again, starting fresh. She stumbles out into the dark, wet, street of the world not knowing where she is going, but knowing where she came from and what she is worth.