Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Any new production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, John Cameron Mitchell’s iconic exploration of gender and identity, has a steep hill to climb for me. I saw the phenomenal movie adaptation in college, the perfect time to have your mind blown by new ideas, and every production I’ve seen since, both local and national productions has been incredible. It’s a show that casts a long shadow in theater and the queer community, so anything less than an amazing production, at least for me, is going to feel like a let down. Happily, Haven Chicago’s new production delivers the goods.

The acting across the board was fantastic. A climactic scene between Hedwig and her young protégé in particular punched me in the gut. Tyler Anthony Smith portrays Hedwig with the right balance of rage and vulnerability and has impeccable comic timing. A vital part of any production of Hedwig is the crowd work with the audience. Smith does a fantastic job of responding in the moment without breaking the flow of the show. Ismael García plays Yitzhak, Hedwig’s musical partner whom Hedwig constantly pushes out their own attempt at stardom. I recently saw García in Theo’s Sondheim revue, and I continue to be delighted by how great a performer they are.

The sets were colorful and creative, adding a few locations to Hedwig’s story, but if I have to nitpick, I think the decision to add them nudges the show closer to ‘traditional musical’ rather than the pure rock performance of the original. I’m splitting hairs here, but Hedwig spilling their guts should read, at least initially as Hedwig’s ego interfering with the attempt to perform a rock show rather than being the show. In every other version of the show I’ve seen, the story contained in the song “The Origin of Love” is achieved with animation behind the band. This production achieves it with puppets, and the puppets themselves were fantastic and a really interesting way to dramatize the song, but having Hedwig and Yitzak do the puppet work themselves doesn’t quite feel like a rock show, if that makes sense. If nothing else, it gave both actors who were already singing and acting a little too much to do at once. I like the puppet idea, but letting stage hands work them might have made it land more effectively. But again, I’m splitting some fine hairs here. Overall, the show was big and messy and fun in all the right ways. An element I will heap some unqualified praise on is the sound design. In such a small space, it would be easy for the amplified instruments to be too loud for comfort or drown out the actors, and it did neither. That’s an achievement that dedicated music performances have failed to achieve in my experience.

Something else I want to heap praise on is how the show handles its age. The show has to be set now or you lose the urgency of the performance, so the pivotal events happening around the fall of the Berlin Wall could be hard to handle. The show leans into the discrepancies with humor and it really works. The other element I enjoyed was at the cabaret tables at the front were red, yellow, and green flip cards indicating the degree of audience interaction those seated there are comfortable with. Speaking as someone who sits through a production of Hair dreading the moment I will be forced to take a flower, I appreciate the consideration and, for this show, happily flipped to the card to green to let Hedwig do their worst. It was a fun, seamless way to incorporate a discussion of consent that didn’t feel leaden.

Haven Chicago has announced that it will cease production after Hedwig closes. Hedwig and the Angry Inch also happens to be the first show they produced when they opened ten years ago. While it’s always sad when a local theater company closes, I can’t think of a more fitting curtain call than this story about the power of art to help us survive anything.

Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented July 10 – August 4 by Haven Chicago at The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago.

Tickets are available here.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.