Page 8
January 8, 2020
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photo by k ate s Zrom /C ourtesy p ortland C enter s tage at t he a rmory
Delphon “DJ” Curtis Jr. as Hedwig in the rock musical ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch,’ now playing through Feb. 23 at Portland Center State at the Armory.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
o PinionAted
J udge
Local actors front award-winning rock musical
by
d arleen o rtega
Portland Center Stage’s cur-
rent production of “Hedwig and
the Angry Inch” is my third ex-
perience of this iconic show.
And this production is the one
that captured my imagination
and moved me at the heart level.
It’s the one that motivated me to
jump to my feet at the end, and
the one I can most enthusiastical-
ly recommend.
For the uninitiated, “Hedwig”
is a gritty, glittery drag-punk
musical centered on two charac-
ters--Hedwig, a refugee from the
former East Germany, and her
bitter and much-abused husband,
Yitzhak (typically played by a
woman), who manages her act
and performs alongside her and
her band, the Angry Inch. The
band is named for what is left
after the botched sex-change op-
eration that was part of Hedwig’s
scheme to leave East Berlin with
an American GI, a year before
the wall came down. But her aim
and story don’t exactly place her
as transgender in the usual sense;
she is what we would now call
gender-queer--but more specifi-
cally, as playwright John Camer-
on Mitchell (who originated the
role) has famously said, “she’s
a gender of one, and that is acci-
dentally so beautiful.”
The play began in drag-punk
clubs in New York City, evolv-
ing into a successful but still un-
derground off-Broadway show
in 1998. After its two-year run
off-Broadway, the show become
an indie film in 2001, which
is where I stepped on the bus.
Back then, I don’t think I knew
what to make of a story of a gen-
der-queer performer singing her
soul and ass off on stage in an of-
ten vengeful rendition of her life,
loves, and botched sex-change
operation. She was breaking free
with something I respected, but
couldn’t really identify with. I
did admire the music.
The show had a successful
Broadway revival in 2014, earn-
ing eight Tony awards, including
a best actor award for Neil Pat-
rick Harris. I saw a later iteration
of that production with Michael
C ontinued on p age 12