In American Stage’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Matthew McGloin plays Hedwig.Photo courtesy American Stage
The title character of Hedwig and the Angry Inch goes on one helluva journey. Any company that chooses to stage this cult-favorite 1998 rock musical better have an actor who can go from inexperienced young Hansel to ravaged rock diva Hedwig and embody a range of other characters besides. He also has to be able to sing, move and dazzle in every style from pop to punk.
American Stage’s Hedwig: Matthew McGloin
I’m happy to report that American Stage’s Hedwig has just such an actor in Matthew McGloin. I have seen Hedwigs that went for in-your-face flash and trash from the start, with little emotional distance left to go. But McGloin’s approach is multi-dimensional, evolving from an almost matter-of-fact presence into a protean character alive with rage and outrageousness, hatred, and love.
And boy, can he sing, equally effective on balls-out rockers like “Tear Me Down” and quieter, more introspective numbers like the bittersweet “Wicked Little Town.” I forgot how much variety there was in Stephen Trask’s score. Each song, whether tender or defiant, serves as a number in Hedwig’s club act, a chapter in her autobiography, and a challenge to the walls that divide countries and genders.
American Stage’s Hedwig: The Story
The Berlin Wall is central to Hedwig’s autobiography. Née Hansel Schmidt, he lives with his mother in 1970s East Berlin, a 20-something “girlyboy” obsessed with Western pop. When an American serviceman, Luther, becomes infatuated with him, Hansel’s mother sets him up with a sex change operation and a passport under her name, Hedwig, so that he can leave for the West. But the operation is botched, leaving him with only the titular angry inch. A move with Luther to Junction City, Kansas ends badly, and Hedwig/Hansel is left to forge a new identity as a drag performer with a rock band named, of course, The Angry Inch.
Hedwig (Matthew McGloin) with her band, The Angry Inch.Photo courtesy American Stage.
Informing Hedwig’s quest throughout is her quest for completeness, she sings in “The Origin of Love” (accompanied by Hannah Smith Allen’s appropriately fractured animations). The Plato-inspired lyrics posit that we spend our lives searching for our missing halves, split from us by angry gods. Hedwig finds her other half, she thinks, in a Junction City teenager, Tommy Speck, who abandons her when he discovers her eccentric appendage. He moves on to become a rock star, singing songs inspired by Hedwig and taking a name she invented for him, Tommy Gnosis (the Greek word for knowledge). After an accidental re-encounter involving a blow job and a limo crash, she follows his tours and plays in his vicinity, still hoping her other half will take notice.
Flawless From Stage to Sets
Slim, lithe and effortlessly versatile, McGloin is equally convincing as the confused Christian teen, the distant German mom, and the gruff Army man, while taking Hedwig through all her changes with elan. In the infectious “Wig in a Box,” we watch her adopt multiple identities all in one number, from “Miss Beehive 1963” to “Miss Farrah Fawcett from TV” to “Miss Punk Rock Star of Stage and Screen.” Kudos to designers Bob Kuhn for the costumes and coiffures, and to Luke Cantarella for the perfectly grungy backyard club that explodes with color when Hedwig throws open her wardrobe. Jimmy Lawlor’s spot-on lighting and the seamless staging by director Kirsten Kelly move us with ease through all of the shifts in time and place.
Hedwig and Yitzhak (K Chinthana Sotakoun).Photo courtesy American Stage
American Stage’s Hedwig: “Killer Chops and a Distinct Personality”
Did I give the impression that this is a one-man show? Hardly. Everyone in the six-person on-stage band has killer chops and a distinct personality. And you can’t have a Hedwig without a Yitzhak. K Chinthana Sotakoun is perfectly sullen as Hedwig’s “husband” and backup singer, an ex-drag queen whom Hedwig has forbidden to sing anything but backup. But when Yitzhak does sing…. Wow! Sotakoun is a revelation in the role.
We saw the show’s first preview — a dress rehearsal, in essence, explained American Stage Producing Artistic Director Helen R. Murray in her curtain speech. The energy level in the room was understandably a bit tentative at first — this was not an audience of Hed-Heads, as co-creator John Cameron Mitchell has nicknamed the show’s devoted fans.
Hedwig unwigged.Photo courtesy American Stage
But by the end, during the gloriously cathartic “Midnight Radio,” just about everyone in the audience was answering the song’s call to “Lift up your hands.” I can only imagine what it’ll be like when this show, after its run at American Stage, moves to Jannus Live.
See Hedwig at American Stage
Hedwig and the Angry Inch American Stage, 163 Third St. N., St. Petersburg; Jannus Live, 200 First Ave. N., St. Petersburg. Through June 9 at American Stage; June 13-16 at Jannus Live. 727-823-7529, americanstage.org.
Arts All Around!
The Gabber Newspaper covers live theater and art across South Pinellas and, when we find something worth the drive, in the Tampa Bay and Sarasota areas.
