Hedwig and the Angry Inch
| Hedwig and the Angry Inch | |
|---|---|
 Hedwig movie poster | |
| Directed by | John Cameron Mitchell |
| Written by | John Cameron Mitchell (play; screenplay) Stephen Trask (play music & lyrics) |
| Produced by | Amy Henkels Pamela Koffler Katie Roumel Mark Tusk Christine Vachon |
| Starring | John Cameron Mitchell Michael Pitt Miriam Shor Andrea Martin Alberta Watson Stephen Trask |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates | 20 June, 2001 |
Running time | 95 minutes |
| Language | English |
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is an off-Broadway musical theater play (premiered 1998) and film (premiered 2001) about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by an East German transgender singer. The text is by John Cameron Mitchell and the music and lyrics are by Stephen Trask. It's been performed throughout the world in hundreds of stage productions, and has slowly but steadily gathered a devoted cult following similar to that of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Originally directed and produced by Peter Askin, the play won a Village Voice Obie Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical. The film, adapted and directed by Mitchell, won the Best Director and Audience Awards at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, the Grand Prize at the Deauville Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival's Teddy Award, Best Directorial Debut from the National Board of Review and the L.A. Film Critics, and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for Mitchell.
The story draws on Mitchell's life as the son of a U.S. Army Major General who once commanded the U.S. sector of occupied West Berlin. The character of Hedwig was originally inspired by a German woman, a divorced U.S. Army wife who was a Mitchell family babysitter who moonlighted as a prostitute at her Junction City, Kansas trailer park home. The music is steeped in the androgynous 70's glam rock era of David Bowie (who co-produced the Los Angeles production of the show), as well as the work of John Lennon and early punk godfathers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. The show was workshopped by Mitchell, Trask and the band Cheater (Jack Steeb, Chris Weilding, Dave McKinley and Scott Bilbrey) at New York's famed drag-rock Squeezebox Club, as well as Fez Nightclub and Westbeth Theater Center before opening Off-Broadway at the Jane Street Theater on February 14, 1998. The theater was located in the ballroom of the Hotel Riverview which once housed the surviving crew of the Titanic (a fact which figured in the original production). The Off-Broadway production ran for 2 years and was remounted with various casts by the original creative team in Boston, Los Angeles and London.
Plot synopsis
Hansel, an East German "slip of a girly-boy" who loves philosophy and rock music, is stuck in East Berlin until he meets Luther, a U.S. soldier. Luther falls in love with Hansel and the two decide to marry. This plan will allow Hansel to leave communist East Germany for the democratic West. However, in order to be married, the couple must consist of a man and a woman. Hansel's mother Hedwig gives her child her name and passport and finds a doctor to perform a sex change. The operation is botched, however, and her surgically constructed vagina heals closed, leaving Hansel — now Hedwig — with a dysfunctional one-inch mound of flesh between her legs, "with a scar running down it like a sideways grimace on an eyeless face."
Hedwig goes to live in Junction City, Kansas as Luther's wife. On their first wedding anniversary, Luther leaves Hedwig for another man. That same day, it is announced that the Berlin Wall has fallen and Germany will reunite.
Hedwig recovers from the separation by forming a rock band composed of Korean-born Army wives which she names "The Angry Inch." (The guitarist, Kwahng-Yi, is played by Sook-Yin Lee who stars in Mitchell's 2006 film Shortbus) Hedwig befriends a shy and misunderstood Christian teenager Tommy Speck, with whom she writes some songs. (Speck is played by Michael Pitt in the film; in the play, the actor playing Hedwig plays the role of Tommy as well as most of the other characters in the piece.) Hedwig gives him the stage name "Tommy Gnosis", but he later leaves her and goes on to become a wildly-successful rock star with the songs Hedwig wrote alone and with him. "Internationally ignored" Hedwig and her Angry Inch are forced to support themselves by playing coffee bar chains and strip mall dives. In the film, these gigs are played at a chain seafood restaurant called Bilgewaters.
Throughout the film, Hedwig refers to Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium. This myth, retold by Hedwig in the song "The Origin of Love", explains that human beings were once round, two-headed, four-armed, and four-legged beings. Angry gods split these early humans in two, leaving the separated people to forever long for their other half. Hedwig believes that Tommy is her soulmate and that she cannot be whole without him. She feels driven to either reunite with him or destroy him.
Film Production
In order to capture the intensity of a live performance, most of the lead vocals were recorded "live" as the scenes were being shot.
In order to look like a trangender person, Mitchell had to shave constantly during the course of the film, often using an electric razor between shots while still in full makeup. In the DVD commentary, Mitchell mentions that Pitt was somewhat uncomfortable with their prolonged kissing scene, complaining about being scratched by Mitchell's stubble. Mitchell complained about Pitt consuming onion and garlic directly before shooting the scene.
The film's DVD features several deleted scenes, mostly expanding on the characters around Hedwig. We learn more about Yitzhak (he was once a drag queen called "Krystal Nacht", a pun on Kristallnacht) and how he met Hedwig in a Croatian drag bar. We also learn that Hedwig's manager, Phyllis Stein, has a cell phone surgically implanted in a tooth. Whe she gets hit in the head with a dryer door she is unable to hang up her phone. Krzyzhtoff (Rob Campbell), whom Hedwig has just yelled at for putting her bra in the dryer, attempts to help Phyllis by pressing on her tooth.
Analysis
There is debate as to whether this musical is about a transsexual woman or a drag queen, a male or a female. Many people consider Hedwig to be a transsexual because she had gender reassignment surgery. However, the operation does not result in a distinctly female or male genital structure, and her reasons for undergoing it are largely situational (a means to escape East Germany via marriage) rather than being related to an innate gender identity. Hedwig herself seems rather ambivalent about her gender status, but in the song Wig in a Box she does refer to "the woman I've become", suggesting that she regards herself as female at that point in the story. At the story's end, when Hedwig has shed her female garments and seems to be embracing an androgynously masculine persona, the character still sings of herself alongside notable female rock figures ("Here's to Patti, and Tina, and Yoko, Aretha, and Nona, and Nico and me"; from "Midnight Radio"). However, the variety of physical and mental signs of sex and gender and the lack among them of any clear-cut, definite answer as to Hedwig's identity may also be accepted as just that: nonbinary gender, androgynous, genderqueer or genderfuck. The character of Hedwig began as a drag character of Mitchell's, loosely based on a babysitter he knew as a teenager in Germany. (In fact, the character of Tommy is more closely based on Mitchell himself, as the son of a soldier, growing up gay, isolated, confused, deeply Roman Catholic and steeped in mythology.) Some people consider Hedwig a symbol of queer identity, as a figure of gender variation and freedom to choose an identity according to one's heart's desire. Hedwig's second spouse and bandmate, an aspiring drag queen named Yitzhak (who is played by a woman, Miriam Shor, in both the stage and film versions), also reflects this theme. In the stage version and final edit of the film it is unclear whether Yitzhak is male or female; in the film's DVD commentary, the cinematographer calls a kiss between Hedwig and Yitzhak the movie's "heterosexual moment", to which Mitchell responds that this isn't necessarily so, since Yitzhak's gender is never specified. A deleted scene on the DVD release shows Hedwig meeting Yitzhak in a drag show in Eastern Europe; this scene makes it clear that Yitzhak is a drag queen performing under the name "Krystal Nacht, the Last Jewess of the Balkans", and that Hedwig has forced Yitzhak to abandon his drag persona. This scene was presumably deleted to make the genders of both characters and their relationship more ambiguous. However, even in the final edit, it becomes clear that during the course of the film a frustrated Yitzhak takes on a masculine role purely for Hedwig's sake, and when finally allowed to appear as a glamorous drag queen at the end, is at last fulfilled.
The play and film have rather different endings, and both have led to many interpretations by critics and fans. The play ends with Hedwig and Tommy seeming to merge into one person, with some suggestion that perhaps they were the same person all along. As for the film, it takes even more of a turn into surrealism after Hedwig and Tommy's car crash, and it's difficult to say if the events depicted are literally occurring, if Hedwig is imagining them, or if something else is happening. One interpretation has it that Hedwig (and possibly Tommy) were killed in the crash and that everything after the crash is flashing through Hedwig's mind as she dies. There is a certain logic to this; after the crash, there is a montage of Hedwig's dreams seemingly coming true (she achieves fame, she is acknowledged as the writer of Tommy's hit songs, etc.), followed by a scene where she appears in one of the much-despised Bilgewaters restaurants and sings a song raging about her tragic life, perhaps feeling one last stab of bitterness in the final moments of her existence. She laments how her various relationships have taken parts of her, but goes on to assert that she has reconstructed herself, sewn up in bits and pieces as an exquisite corpse that still shows the impact of those she has known. After this, Hedwig finds herself in a vast, black, empty concert hall, where Tommy and Hedwig share a loving but tearful goodbye, after which Tommy slips away into the darkness, leaving Hedwig alone. Then Hedwig is surprised to find herself abruptly transported to a gleaming white (heavenly?) concert hall, and she performs the joyous, reflective "Midnight Radio" for an appreciative crowd. Her feminine clothing and faux breasts stripped away, she hands her wig over to a grateful Yitzhak, who immediately transforms into the glamorous drag queen he always wanted to be while he was trapped in Hedwig's shadow. The crowd carries Yitzhak away from Hedwig — another symbolic farewell — and the next we see of Hedwig, she is naked and staggering away from us down a dark wet alley (some have likened it to a birth canal) that feeds into a busy city street. We see her tattoo (which illustrates the story of "The Origin of Love" with a Taoist-inspired symbol of two half-faces) magically morphing into a single, whole face. Hedwig reaches the curb, looks both ways, crosses the street and disappears.
In interviews, Mitchell has referred to the character moving on to a new and more integrated life after the events of the film, which (depending on one's view of death) suggests that the death interpretation might not be the intended one.
Gnostic Christian Influences
Tommy's interpretation of the Book of Genesis (he regards Eve's eating of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as a positive, knowledge-seeking act) and his identification of Hedwig with Eve as the knowledge-giver is influenced by Christian Gnostic philosophy and inspired Tommy's nom-de-rock, Tommy Gnosis. These very early (from the first two centuries A.D.) Gnostic gospels were condemned as heretical by the early Christian Church and rejected from the list of gospels deemed suitable for inclusion in the New Testament. Many of these texts (along with elements of Plato's Republic) were buried in a single sealed jar--probably by a monk soon after 367 A.D. to protect them from destruction--in the desert near Nag Hammadi, Egypt and were only discovered in 1945. They were finally released to the public in 1977 as the Nag Hammadi Library. In general, the Gnostics advocated a personal search for an inner gnosis, or spiritual knowledge, as opposed to seeking salvation through the dictates of a hierarchical church. Twin and doppelganger imagery abound and many texts seemed to be more open to the idea of women as equal partners in spirituality (eg, Eve was revered and there was a Gospel of Mary [Magdelene]}. Some quotes from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas are included in the Dramatist Play Service publication of Hedwig:
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into one, so that the male be not male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom."
Jesus' disciples said to him, "Is circumcision useful?" He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."
Jesus said, "What you bring forth from within you will save you. What you do not bring forth will destroy you."
Jesus said, "Do not fret from morning to evening and from evening to morning about what you are going to wear."
Public Response
Mitchell and Trask performed twice on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" (the second time with Dean DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots). At first, the studio objected to a "drag" performance on the daytime family show. But O'Donnell asked them that if they could show a drag queen throwing a chair on Jerry Springer at the same hour, why couldn't they have a drag queen singing about love? The studio relented and Mitchell and his band performed "The Origin of Love". A clip from this show was used in the Hedwig film with O'Donnell's blessing.
Mitchell said his performance on David Letterman as Hedwig was interesting: "During rehearsal, a disembodied voice emanating from the control booth gently told me that I couldn't rip my wig off during the song ("Tear Me Down"). I asked why, but there was only silence from on high. So when we taped, I ripped it off after the song. They edited it out. I think they wanted people to think I was a woman and not a man in drag." Letterman avoided shaking Mitchell's hand after the song, breaking his habit after a performance.
Fans of the play and film refer to themselves as "Hedheads." The musical found its greatest popularity in Korea and Japan, where a number of respected actors and teen idols have played the role and generated a large number of young, female Hedheads. The film has spawned a small worldwide Rocky Horror-like cult following, with midnight screenings, or "shadowcasts", where fans dress up as the characters and sometimes act out the dialogue or talk back to the screen.
Song List
- "Tear Me Down"
- "The Origin of Love"
- "Random Number Generation" (cast album only; does not appear in stage show)
- "Sugar Daddy"
- "The Angry Inch"
- "Wig in a Box"
- "Wicked Little Town"
- "The Long Grift"
- "Nailed" (film soundtrack only)
- "Freaks" (with Girls Against Boys - film soundtrack only)
- "In Your Arms Tonight" (film soundtrack only)
- "Hedwig's Lament"
- "Exquisite Corpse"
- "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)"
- "Midnight Radio"
[Punk legend Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü, Sugar) played guitar on most songs on the film soundtrack.]
Song covers
In 2003, Chris Slusarenko's Off Records released an album called Wig in a Box, a charity tribute album which also included new material adding to the mythology of Hedwig. Performers included Frank Black and The Breeders. Slusarenko said that he fielded questions from Kim Deal of The Breeders about Black, her former bandmate in The Pixies, with whom she'd had limited conversation since the band's breakup in 1993. They made contact soon after, and The Pixies reunited the following spring. Other bands who participated in "Wig in a Box" were Yo La Tengo featuring Yoko Ono, Sleater-Kinney featuring Fred Schneider (of The B-52s), Jonathan Richman, Rufus Wainwright, Polyphonic Spree, Spoon, Imperial Teen, Bob Mould, Cyndi Lauper with The Minus Five (featuring Peter Buck of REM), The Three Bens (Ben Folds, Ben Lee and Ben Kweller), They Might Be Giants and Robin Hitchcock. Trask and Mitchell completed an unfinished Tommy Gnosis song (leftover from the musical's development days) called "Milford Lake" (sung by Mitchell) and included it. The cd also features comedian Stephen Colbert reciting the spoken introduction to Tear Me Down. The profits of this album benefitted The Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School, a New York City public school for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth who have experienced discrimination and violence in other public schools or at home and are at risk of not completing their secondary education.
"Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig", a documentary about the making of the "Wig in a Box" benefit cd, profiled students from the Harvey Milk School. It was directed by Katherine Linton and produced by the Sundance Channel and is now available on DVD.
The band Type O Negative covered "Angry Inch" on their 2003 album Life Is Killing Me.
Meat Loaf covered "Tear Me Down" that same year on his album Couldn't Have Said It Better, adapting some of the lyrics (notably the spoken section about the Berlin Wall) so that the song is instead about Texas and Meat Loaf's own life. Trask, who composed the music for Hedwig, was much influenced by Meat Loaf's albums growing up. A deleted scene on the Hedwig DVD acknowledges the debt in a roundabout way, as we overhear Hedwig's manager Phyllis Stein (Andrea Martin) arguing about the band's sound on the phone: "Meatloaf? Bowie!"
One of the Bonus tracks of Damn Skippy, "Pirate In A Box" by Lemon Demon, is a parody of Wig In a Box.
Ben Jelen covered Hedwig's version of "Wicked Little Town" on his 2004 album Give It All Away.
Future Kings Of Spain covered "Angry Inch" for the b-side of their 2003 single, "Hanging Around".
Miscellaneous information
Many notable actors have played Hedwig onstage, including the Tony award-winning actor Michael Cerveris, former Brat Pack member Ally Sheedy, Rent star Anthony Rapp, respected stage/film actor Matt McGrath, and the glam-rocker son of sixties folk-rock composer Donovan, Donovan Leitch, Jr..
The name of Hedwig's aggressive but loving manager, Phyllis Stein, is a pun on the word philistine.
Mitchell and Trask originally intended for Hedwig to sing a German glam rendition of You Light Up My Life, but when the rights proved too expensive, the song Midnight Radio was composed instead.
In one scene in the film Hedwig and the band are performing at the "Menses Fair", a parody of the then-popular Lilith Fair, but at pathetic sub-stage near the Port-A-Janes. Famed folk singer, Dar Williams, a college friend of Stephen Trask, is heard singing on the main stage over the hill.
Karen Hines, infamous Canadian clown and actress, appeared in the film as Tommy's publicist.
P.J. Deboy, later a star of Mitchell's Shortbus, is the extra wearing dreadlocks in the scene where Hedwig is drunk on a pile of tires. Template:Sound sample box align right Template:Sample box end
Albums
- 1999 Original Cast Recording
- 2001 Movie Soundtrack
- 2002 "Wig" Cleveland Public Theatre Cast
- 2003 Wig In A Box (tribute album)
- 2004 UK Atrocity Tour
- 2007 Original Australian Cast Recording
External links
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch at IMDb
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch — Official website for the film
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch — Official webpage for the Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Hedwig in a Box — Official Hedwig fan club
- hedwigandtheangryinch.co.uk — Janus Theatre Company UK website
- HedwigFrance — First French production of Hedwig website
- Hedwig.com.au — Official website of the Australian production of Hedwig
- The Midnight Checkout Queens — New York City Hedwig Shadowcasters
References
- John Cameron Mitchell (Director) (2001). Hedwig and the Angry Inch (DVD). New Line Home Entertainment.