TJ Creedon in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”
Ladies and gentlemen, ready or not, Open Stage brings to Harrisburg “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” a volatile marriage of cabaret, burlesque, a punk/rock show, and an onstage catfight during RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Director Chris Gibson and Music Director Brad Barkdoll fly the freak flag to assemble an over-the-top drag immersion. It’s messy, like Courtney-Love-after-a-swig-of-pills messy. Yet within the musical’s operatic monologue is a life story about trying to find love, complete with an absentee father, a cold mother and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The club where we meet Hedwig (TJ Creedon) is nowhere near Berlin. It’s right next to Whitaker Center, and Hedwig’s ex-boyfriend, Tommy Gnosis, is playing a louder show next door. Clad in rhinestones, latex, and peek-a-boo undergarments, Creedon embodies fury while delivering raunchy jokes and unbridled anthems. He excels in bringing forth the vulnerability of Hedwig from underneath all the physical and emotional trappings, her drive to find her other half, and her struggle with how to fit together with someone else without losing more of herself along her journey.
The music is charged electricity, prickling under the skin like a butterknife in a wall socket. A brooding Barkdoll (guitar) leads band members Jeremy Blouch (bass), Dani Fiore (drums), and Daphne Rinkus (keys) through 90 minutes (no intermission) of pulsating rhythms. There may only be two handfuls of songs, but they pack a wallop while they tell Hedwig’s tale.
Creedon is raging dynamite, blowing up the stage, stomping in thigh-high platform boots like the fifth member of KISS. The performance is daring, unchecked, uncontrollable, and could explode at any moment.
As onstage wallflower, Yitzhak (Rachel Landon) enters into duets with Hedwig, in much the way an alter ego takes over when recessive parts of a personality emerge, the masks we wear in life. In appearance, Landon’s clandestine trappings (costume designer, Hanniel Sindelar) are so understated and blended, I didn’t recognize her until she started singing. In the duets, Creedon and Landon don’t exactly blend, and they aren’t supposed to.
At first, Landon putters onstage as Yitzhak. Then she finds that confident voice within herself. All the while, her voice is throaty, flinty-rock, at the end bursting forth from the manly-looking shell that holds her. All the symbolism applies.
The music was so driving, so fulfilling, in fact, that it would be easier to tell you about the only song in which I wanted to take Hedwig up on her offer to throw tomatoes: “Sugar Daddy.” Although I do love candy themes and Sears catalog close-ups of men’s undies, the country music vibe cancels out all that was good about the song’s essence. The other 10 songs – the long punk stripteases, even the moody ballads – rocked my world like a guilty one-night stand.
The finale doesn’t sit neatly like a perfectly coiffed wig. Instead, it’s a screamer, the way one might react after a botched sex change operation, as one does, yes? Hedwig gains the strength to step out of her own way, throwing all her self-loathing feelings away like her crimped wig, revealing her naked, authentic self.
Lighting designer Tristan Stasiulus succeeds in using lighting techniques that bring a glorious amount of shadow and skeeve to those onstage, drawing attention to the appropriately disturbing art (Brianna Dow, projections designer) complementing the music. The music is underground-loud, a bit muffled at times, but it’s not a sanitized experience that you bought tickets to immerse yourself within.
Hedwig says, leave yer little runts at home. And if you don’t want various parts of a drag queen inches from your face, sit somewhere other than the first row. Hedwig would remind you that the theater is intimate enough for you to throw your tomatoes at her from any row… although this reviewer trusts that if this is your subgenre, you will leave with all your fruits and vegetables intact.
“Hedwig and the Angry Inch” runs through March 1. For more information, check their website at https://www.openstagehbg.com/shows/hedwig
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