What’s an “internationally ignored song stylist” to do once she becomes an internationally renowned touring Broadway star?
Keeping the offbeat edge and downtown grit in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” has been part of the challenge for creators and performers of the recent Broadway production of the show, which makes a brief stop at the Fox Theatre April 4-5 as part of a national tour with Euan Morton in the lead role. The musical tells the story of a fictional rock ‘n’ roll band fronted by Hedwig, a transgender singer who managed to cross from East to West Berlin before the wall fell by having a sex change.
The concept of the stage production is that the audience is literally watching Hedwig’s glam punk act and confessional asides in a grubby, hardcore rock club. The pitch was easily believable in the show’s original 1998 incarnation at the Jane Hotel, a crumbling, seedy space on Manhattan’s Lower West Side, and the 2001 movie had Hedwig appearing in the various locales of a pathetically dingy seafood restaurant chain called Bilgewater’s. But what exactly is Hedwig doing in a Broadway theater?
“Our goal all along was to capture the heart of the show, which is this really brutal and hilariously funny story, and do it in a way that would still satisfy Broadway audiences,” says Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer.
Although the 2014 Broadway production was Mayer’s first time directing a production of “Hedwig,” he has a long history with the show. In 1995, he started working with “Hedwig” creator John Cameron Mitchell on the material, but as the idea started to turn into a full production, he had to leave the project to direct his first Broadway show, “Triumph of Love.” “I’ve had a date with this show for a long time, so when it came back around for revival, and it came back to me, I was thrilled.”
Still, in keeping with the concept, the show had to have a reason for the defiant, “ignored” singer to be appearing on the Great White Way. “John came up with the brilliant idea that she’s in a theater where a show has just closed,” says Mayer. “The whole premise of this version is that she’s an interloper on the set of a failed musical that closed the night before, ‘Hurt Locker: The Musical.’ It works great on Broadway, and it works great on tour because it happens at every stop. Instead of being a Broadway failure, it’s a show in out-of-town tryouts. … What we discovered once we did the show on Broadway is how incredibly flexible the character is. It’s like any of the great roles. How many women have played Momma Rose in ‘Gypsy’? It’s such a great part that it really can support different interpretations.”
The actor taking on the role for the national tour of “Hedwig” is Morton, a Tony- and Olivier-nominated performer.
Morton says that the line between performer and role in the site-specific, “meta” show can easily get fuzzy. “You’re a performer on tour playing a performer on tour,” he says. “There’s a line in there where she says, ‘The road is my home, my home, the road.’ I’m not quite sure which one of us is saying it. Once I step out into that light, I vanish. I forget who I am. It’s weird. It’s very hard to explain the sort of explosion that happens when you play Hedwig.”
Morton says that one of the things that has kept audiences coming back to the show over the years (there are even some intense fans, known as Hedheads, who see multiple productions) is its unique story and singular character. “People who are looking for an emotional outlet can find a safe space in a character like Hedwig,” he says. “Hedwig allows you. If I’m willing to stand up there in front of 3,000 people and say the things I say while dressed the way I’m dressed, why the hell can’t everybody else? She gives freedom to everyone in the room to be who they want to be. She’s not judging. People feel it’s a safe space to be as wild as they want to be.
“The music is amazing,” Morton says, “and that alone is enough to keep people coming back. She’s unique, and she brings out uniqueness in others.”
The first Broadway production starred Neil Patrick Harris, and a number of well-known actors have stepped into the role since then — Andrew Rannells, Michael C. Hall, Darren Criss, Taye Diggs and even John Cameron Mitchell briefly reprising the role he created — but Morton says he’s especially proud to be the first actor to take the Broadway production on tour.
“I’ve been the luckiest actor to play Hedwig,” he says. “I’m not in New York or L.A. I’m not in a safe space. I am the safe space. We are taking the safe space out of New York, and we’re bringing it to places around America where it might come in handy. She is kind of life-changing. Hedwig is not trying to cut people out. She’s trying to bring people in.”
SHOW PREVIEW
“Hedwig and the Angry Inch”
7:30 p.m. April 4-5. $48.50-$128.50. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-881-2100, http://foxtheatre.org/events/hedwig-and-the-angry-inch/.
