On a glam-rock gender-bender
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Otto stars as the lead character in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," which opens with two performances this weekend at Wave Waikiki.
'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' 6 p.m. today and Saturday Wave Waikiki $5 834-6886 Also: 6 p.m. May 24 and 25, Pink Cadillac; 10 p.m. May 31 and June 1, Honolulu Academy of Arts theater. All shows $5. |
The famously disenchanted unit being measured in the title of the Off-Broadway (and big-screen) rock 'n' roll musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is all that remains in flesh of a botched sex-change operation performed on titular transsexual glam-rocker Hedwig Schmidt. It's also the moniker our cheesed and lonely heroine has chosen to lavish on her backing band as a result of said botched sex-change operation.
Feel free to tune out now.
For those still with me — most of you probably are already somewhat familiar with the above oddball piece of "Hedwig" plot — get ready for the fictional gender-bending vocalist's Honolulu stage debut. Sort of.
Our version of the Farrah-tressed diva arrives in town not in the lithe Obie Award-winning form of co-creator, co-writer and original Hedwig John Cameron Mitchell, but via the inspired mind of Honolulu punk promoter, punk musician, cheesecake baker and big-screen "Hedwig" fan Otto.
" 'Hedwig' was the best movie I saw all last year," said the singularly-named Otto, who mostly fell hard for the filmed musical's wall-to-wall, Meatloaf-by-way-of-David-Bowie punk- and glitter-rock music score. "When I saw it with my friends last September, we were, like, 'We should do this live!' By the time the film left Signature Theatres, I had seen it four times and had already started plans to do it."
Six months after purchasing stage rights for the musical, Otto directs, produces and stars in his very own "Hedwig" theatrical production this weekend with two performances at Wave Waikiki. Otto's "Hedwig" is also set for Pink Cadillac May 24 and 25, and the Honolulu Academy of Arts theater May 31 and June 1.
Told via an 11-song set list of over-the-top rock anthems dripping with sadness, rage, longing and inspired humor, "Hedwig" unfolds as one supremely ticked-off transsexual chanteuse's recounting of her life story.
In songs like "The Origin of Love," "Angry Inch" and "Sugar Daddy," the audience learns about Hedwig's youth as a sexually abused boy named Hansel growing up in 1960s East Berlin, and his teenage marriage and divorce from an American GI after the less-than-successful surgery. The music also tracks Hedwig's doomed love for an aspiring teenage musician who ends up stealing her songs and dumping her for rock stardom.
In the remarkably gifted hands of Mitchell and "Hedwig" co-creator, lyricist and music writer Stephen Trask, most of these weighty proceedings are as inventive in their humor as they are gut wrenching in emotional content.
With Mitchell in the lead role, "Hedwig" opened Feb. 14, 1998, at the Jane Street Theater in Manhattan's arty Greenwich Village to overwhelmingly positive critical and audience notice. The musical won two Obie Awards and a Grammy nomination for Trask's musical score before closing April 9, 2000, after 857 performances.
New Line Cinema bought the film rights to the musical in 2000, securing Mitchell to star and direct. After taking Best Director and Audience Award honors at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, "Hedwig" was released to theaters last July and grossed more than $3 million in the United States.
The stage musical relies more heavily on Trask's narrative-driving rock songs and off-color Hedwig monologues written by Mitchell. The whole shebang is presented as a series of concerts performed by Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Otto's original "Hedwig" plan was to direct, produce and play bass in the six-member Angry Inch band. He stepped into Hedwig's sizable platforms midway through production when his original lead kept failing to show up for rehearsals.
"Truthfully, I became Hedwig only to keep this thing going," says Otto. "And slowly, it became a little bit more comfortable to actually be Hedwig."
