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REGULARS
posted 7/19/2001
Gender-bender rock opera Hedwig and the Angry Inch started out as an off-Broadway show, and like Hedwig herself, it's been through a radical physical transformation: from stripped-down indie act to fully-produced cinematic tour de force. And like her, the show has maintained, even improved on, its seductive power making its new shape a strength rather than a weakness.
Sporting a lemon-yellow wig with the wingspan of a 747, Hedwig (played by John Cameron Mitchell, who also wrote and directed the film) wittily narrates the tale of her early years as Hansel, an androgynous East German waif who sex-changed in order to marry a black American serviceman. Botched surgery left her "six inches forward and five inches back," a traumatized bridge between East and West, male and female, exploiter and exploitee. Like a reverse Dorothy, she landed in a trailer park in Kansas, where she re-invented herself as a rock 'n roll diva only to lose her heart and lyrics to her very own Rocky Horror: teenage-loser-turned-rock-star Tommy Gnosis (Mike Pitt).
Twisting camp theatrical clichés (wacky names! gender transgression!) so hard they squeal and transform, the movie is more than mere spectacle. A sequence like the "Sugar Daddy" number, for instance in which a gleeful Hansel follows a trail of Gummi Bears through East German rubble, straight to the serviceman's crotch is flat-out sexy, but also weaves its fairy-tale imagery into a bittersweet metaphor about money, power and lust. There are flaws: the ending wavers, interactions with Hedwig's agent fall flat, but these are nitpicks. Hedwig knocks all objections down like they're the Berlin Wall.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Emily Nussbaum writes the Summary Judgment column for Slate. She also writes for The New York Times and The Boston Globe.
