The star and writer of the original off-Broadway musical and subsequent film reveals Hedwig’s long road to the Great White Way, if he’ll ever don that wig again, and where things stand with the sequel.
John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig in the 2001 film adaptation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Fine Line Features
It's been 16 years since John Cameron Mitchell donned the iconic wig to play the titular role in the first off-Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Jane Street Theatre in the West Village. The titular aspiring rock star who undergoes botched gender reassignment surgery to escape East Berlin breathed new life into the rock musical genre. Soon, Mitchell's play inspired a cult following and a legion of loyal Hedheads.
But Mitchell isn't just the original Hedwig: He also wrote the musical, with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, and reprised his role in the 2001 film adaptation. When he and I meet in late March, Neil Patrick Harris is days away from taking the stage in the starring role as Hedwig and the Angry Inch makes its big Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre.
The first question I ask Mitchell, he throws back at me: "Why bring Hedwig and the Angry Inch to Broadway now?" Suddenly on the spot, I'm not sure how to answer.
We're downstairs at Whynot Coffee & Wine on Christopher Street in the West Village, and I take a moment to appreciate the fact that the name of this establishment is perhaps as good an answer to the question as I can offer.
"I mean, I'm interested in knowing," Mitchell presses. "Does it feel too soon? Too late?"
It's not only the timing that has me questioning the revival — it's also the venue. The musical about an "internationally ignored" transsexual rock star has always felt more underground than Great White Way.
"It just seemed like Broadway caught up with us in terms of having rock 'n' roll and drag," Mitchell finally answers, "and they were just ready for us."
Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig in the new Broadway production at the Belasco Theatre.
Joan Marcus
It's not as though rock and drag on Broadway didn't exist in 1998, when Hedwig and the Angry Inch was bringing down the house several subway stops west. Rock musical Hair hit Broadway in 1968, and George Hearn was performing "I Am What I Am" in a sequined gown when La Cage aux Folles debuted in 1973. But Hedwig's innate queerness was ahead of its time, even in the late '90s.
The musical offers a mythology in which sexual identity is secondary to the search for our other half. And sure, it's based on Plato's Symposium, but it remains a radical approach to thinking about human connection. Add to that the lines Hedwig herself blurs: "Standing between you in the divide between east and west, slavery and freedom, man and woman, top and bottom."
In 1998, Broadway was also in the midst of its much maligned Disneyfication: The Tony Award winner for Best Musical that year was The Lion King. And while saucier fare like the steamy Cabaret revival with Alan Cumming (the first time) offered more adult entertainment, a show like Hedwig was still firmly outside the mainstream.
"Drag wasn't really on Broadway," Mitchell says. "It was considered low-class. There was Rocky Horror hundreds of years ago, [but] Rocky's much more — it's a different beast, more campy."
Cut to the 2013 Tonys, where the award for Best Musical went to Kinky Boots, based on the film of the same name about the owner of a shoe factory partnering with a drag queen named Lola to produce custom women's footwear for men. There have been major strides over the past 16 years — strides in sparkly thigh-high boots, no less — creating an environment where a big Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch doesn't feel too far removed from the norm.
And yet, the show remains more subversive than most of what Broadway is offering. Consider the fact that 2013's other Best Musical nominees were all family fare: Bring It On: The Musical, A Christmas Story: The Musical, and Matilda the Musical. And Lola, as out and proud as she may be, has nowhere near the raw, sexualized power of Hedwig, who raunchily opines, "In reflecting upon the people whom I have come upon in my travels, I cannot help but think of the people who have come upon me."
As culture moves forward toward edgier entertainment, it also regresses into its comfort zone — "six inches forward, five inches back," to quote Hedwig — which is why it's essential to keep pushing the envelope. Hedwig still has the power to unsettle audiences unfamiliar with its brand of full-fledged, balls-out queerness. Why bring Hedwig and the Angry Inch to Broadway now? Because Broadway is ready. And also because, in so many ways, Broadway is not.
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