If Plato could have foreseen how his theories would have been interpreted throughout the ages he would be out of his Greek skull to see how "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" perverted his ideas about gender.
Plato's theory states that human beings in their original state were bisexual, both man and woman, until Zeus split humans into male and female parts, cursing them to wander the earth in an attempt to find their better half.
"Hedwig" twists Plato's conjecture round its little finger again and again until POP goes the sex change operation: awry, messy and oozing with sexual energy. Suddenly our hero Hedwig is no longer mama's little boy.
Based on a cult movie by John Cameron Mitchell, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is a musical with just as much fervor and fun as the original.
The company, Liberation!, never fails to present a liberal interpretation of their source material, spicing it up for theater-goers. Their first Boston production, "The Seagull" (2003), involved characters madly chalking on walls with Radiohead streaming in from the theater's speakers: not your classical production by any stretch.
But the reason why "The Seagull" flew so high is in part the same reason "Hedwig" drowns. The original film version of "Hedwig" is already insane, outrageous and in tune with wild subcultures. Liberation! was cornered. How do you make a shocking piece more shocking? The result was mixed: a beautifully sung musical with chaotic movements leading to an overall sense of confusion and tense pleasure.
The story of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" follows a poor, misguided German boy-turned-girl (Adam T. Rosencrantz) who gets a sex change operation in East Berlin, marries an American G.I and moves to the U.S. to find a better life: not your everyday fairytale.
Hedwig is joined onstage by Yitzhak (Melissa Kaplan), her repressed husband and a band of actors who both play music and act in small parts. Small, as in they just grumble and make scary faces at the audience.
It might sound trite but I expected more from a production that prides itself on inventiveness. Why is it that all musicals dealing with transsexuals, homosexuals, etc. must emulate the same leather and lipstick punk, spawned by the "Rocky Horror Picture Show?" Where is the originality in that? The reinvention?
Thankfully, the voices of both Kaplan and Rosencrantz were glorious enough to overcome the bedlam terrorizing the stage. For, truly, there was nothing more pleasurable than watching star (and producer) Adam Rosen-crantz play the heck out of Hedwig. Such commitment to a character is rare, especially when that character wears black vinyl mini-shorts.
Fawning over the front row, walking through the aisles like he owned them, Rosencrantz practically makes love to the audience during his performance. Not to mention that in now familiar Liberation! style, audience involvement was required instead of requested. Certain lines were tailored to the Boston audience and the current liberal state of the nation. One or two jabs at family values had the audience rolling in the aisles. It was nothing short of a scene.
Which is good, but it also demeans the play at hand. Technical difficulties with mics and a booming bass made key songs inaudible. Kaplan, while a phenomenal vocalist, often lost her words in trying to play her character's moody side.
Since "The Seagull," Liberation! has released a short film, "The Other Side," which screened at the Brattle as well as the digital feature film, "A Universe Emerging," which was a finalist in the Sundance Feature Film Project Competition. It's a terrifically exciting and rising Boston-based theater group. The fact is, perhaps expectations were simply too high for "Hedwig." Now, with a giddy form of disappointment, I sincerely can't wait to see what surprises Liberation!'s next production holds.
