John Cameron Mitchell stars on Broadway in HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, Mitchell and Stephen Trask's landmark American musical, directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening). Heartbreaking and wickedly funny, this raucously entertaining show has inspired a generation.
Brilliantly innovative and raucously entertaining, Hedwig has inspired a generation. The show was called "the Best Rock Musical Ever" by Rolling Stone and "the most exciting rock score written for the theatre since, oh, ever," by Time Magazine.
Winner of the 2014 Best Musical Revival Tony Award.
Hedwig, lead singer of the Angry Inch, is forever telling people how he gets down on his knees to give thanks. 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' opened Tuesday on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre, and its creators, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, should get down on their four knees to thank star Neil Patrick Harris and director Michael Mayer...Mayer might have kept a touch of that low-rent tawdriness, but no matter. He goes for the Ziggy Stardust/David Bowie glam that inspires Hedwig, and so turns Mitchell and Trask's little tuner into a big Broadway extravaganza that burns as hot as a bruised bottom after an especially rough night of S&M sex...And there is Harris, first and foremost. His voice is ideal for the three or four notes of Trask's songs. He's edgy, angry, bitchy and also very funny.
The big question from the start was could Neil Patrick Harris sing the hard-driving glam rock-meets-punk score of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And would the former Doogie Howser go as far out there as the title role of the embittered East German singer with the botched sex-reassignment surgery demands? The swift answer on both counts is that Harris is beyond fabulous, holds nothing back and plays it any way but safe in Michael Mayer's exhilarating production...Harris smoothly marries Borscht Belt shtick with a self-serious songspiel style reminiscent of Ute Lemper, spicing his performance with improvisational touches and audience exchanges ranging from flirty asides to a lap-dance. Snugly encased in the character, he recounts the lurid specifics of Hedwig's life, exposing the scars of her painful past.
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