Thanks to a spellbinding performance by Michael Cerveris in the title role and to its equally dynamic music and lyrics, this rock-opera about the trials and tribulations of a transvestite diva from East Berlin lives up to the rave reviews it got back in New York. By turns satirical, campy, outrageous, bawdy, tender and moving, the show has a freshness and originality to match its in-your-face challenge to puritanical notions of sexuality and love. Using the conventions of the backstage musical, Hedwig puts its heroine on a blisteringly wild, bumpy ride from self-parody to self-realization.
Cerveris commands the stage every step of the way, taking us through childhood behind the Berlin Wall, a botched sex-change operation (hence the "angry inch"), marriage to an ex-GI, life in an American trailer park and a love affair with a Significant Other who robs her best material, breaks her heart and, worst of all, becomes the successful singer she has yearned to be. Playing second banana to Cerveris is the unisex (and talented) Miriam Shor [sic]. A five piece band led by composer Trask does yeoman work while exploring the rock terrain of the last twenty years (everything from Pink to punk).
Hedwig has all the makings of a hit show, one that will appeal to freaks and straight folk alike.
