Showing some Hedwig love!

[Mimi Imfurst]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 11:30am

Does anyone else here just LOVE hedwig to no end? (I'm talkin the show more than the movie) Lets talk!

[Alix]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 11:35am

I have never seen the show, but I am obsessed with the movie. I'm actually listening to HEDWIG right now...I love it!

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 11:38am

Never saw it, but I have both CD's. LOVE THEM!

[GovernorSlaton]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 11:44am

I have the soundtrack. I like it, but I don't understand the story (well, apart from the main plot ). Anyone care to toss out a short synopsis?

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 11:44am

On Monday at the Leon Rabin awards (the Dallas Theatre League Awards) it shocked everyone by winning Outstanding Production of a Musical and Ourstanding Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical.

The Best Musical Race was thought to be a contest between KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN and THE SPITFIRE GRILL.

And an actor in VIOLET was a "shoo-in" to win Best Actor in a Musical, but the HEDWIG guy slipped through.

I have never seen it, though.

[Alix]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 11:55am

From the old hedwiginabox.com site:

A story of love and finding your other half and who you are (based on Plato's symposium). An East German girlie boy named Hansel lives his life with the hopes of finding this other half to make himself complete. His mother tells the tale to her little son of how we were all one and then split in two.

One day a black G.I. named Luther meets Hansel, proposes marriage to Hansel to take him away from East Germany to the U.S. This all occurs before when the Berlin Wall was up. Hansel agrees to get a sex change operation in order to pass the physical examination needed to move to America. The sex change operation gets botched leaving one inch of genitalia and Hansel now Hedwig (using his mothers name), is left to be neither man nor woman.

Hedwig's husband leaves her one year later in Junction City, Kansas alone and pennyless in a trailer park. She takes on babysitting gigs and a few odd job "mainly the jobs we call blow". One of her babysitting gigs is where she meets a boy named Tommy Speck who also lives in the trailer park. Tommy is Hedwig's protege for music and performing. Tommy becomes a famous rock star, leaves Hedwig behind and does not give her credit for any of her songs. Hedwig is left alone once again feeling rejected spiteful and jealous.

Hedwig becomes somewhat famous when Tommy and her fall victims of a terrible accident that puts them in the headlines. Because of this accident, we are intrigue by this "Internationally ignore song stylist" and are present for one of her concerts with her band "The Angry Inch" along with her second husband Yitzak who sings background vocals. She tells us the story of her life with Mom in East Berlin, Luther, Tommy and her band inbetween the songs. Hedwig's story is tragic, sad, funny, entertaining and a joy to be part of.

[Mimi Imfurst]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 11:57am

Who was it in Dallas?

The stage show is brillant. Absolutely wonderful. I'm doing the show again next year, this time in Provincetown, Ma. (www.gethedwig.com)

Here is the basic plot of the show:
A performance of Hedwig is a single night of Hedwig's tour. Which is in reality, a tour that is stalking super rock star Tommy Gnosis, her former protoge who stole her music and ran. She is telling her side of the story.
Hedwig, who used to be Hansel grew up on the east side of Berlin with his mother. (who is named Hedwig, where Hedwig takes her name from) The show focuses around the theme found in a bed time story once told to Hansel as a small boy by his mother. It is the origin of love story. Hansel believes that his mission in life is to find his other half and is constantly questioning that. Hansel's father left when he was very young(there are references to sexual abuse). One day, Hansel meets Luther, an american army solider who offers to marry Hansel, freeing him from Germany and taking him to America. The only condition is that he must undergo a sex change. Hansel sees this as his only way out and undergos a really basic, and illegal sex change (just a simple chop of the knife) sacrificing his manhood in exchange for freedom. (left with a mear one inch mound of scar tissue. Donning women's clothes and his mothers name, Hedwig marries Luther and moves to the U.S. Where he leaves her a year later. Down and out she turns to music (amongst other things) and starts a band called Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It is then that she meets Tommy, a young boy with an obsession with Jesus. They fall in love and she teaches him everything about music. Ultimately, he is unable to deal with the fact that Hedwig used to be ("is") a man biologically and runs off. (With all her songs.)

Hedwig is getting some attention now, because just before the concert she was picked up Tommy while she was prostituting... and while driving, doing drugs, and making out, the get into a car accident.


Sorry thats long and complicated, because well it is. Pick up the movie. It's not as good as the play, but it is just as brillant. It is almost identical. (Except that Hedwig does all the characters)

[Alix]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 12:01pm

I love the documentary on the DVD. There are a bunch of clips of the stage show and the history of the show and stuff, it is really interesting.....and John Cameron Mitchell is HOT! :)

[Mimi Imfurst]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 12:16pm

The documentary did come out great. John did a good job with the movie. I just hope his other projects get off the ground.

[erinrebecca]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 12:34pm

I loved the stage version, much more than the film. I have many great memories of seeing the show several times at the Jane. There were a lot of cool people involved with it there and I often wonder what happened to all of them. Oh, the days of Ally Sheedy as Hedwig!

[Mimi Imfurst]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 12:38pm

HAAHAHA! Ally SHADY is more like it. Who was ur favorite wig?

[erinrebecca]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 12:44pm

Hmm, choosing a favorite is difficult but I guess I'd have to say Kevin Cahoon.

[Mimi Imfurst]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 12:47pm

ALOT of people say that. I just love michael's hedwig.

[midtowngym]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 2:24pm

My icon says it all. THe movie sucked unfortunately. john and michael were equally awesome Heddies

[Plum]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 2:44pm

*gasp*

The movie did not suck!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 3:51pm

I thought John did an outstanding job adapting what I thought was an unadaptable show to film.

I first saw John do excerpts of the show at Squeezebox when it was still very much an unfinished work-in-progress, but the potential of it was already very obvious. I saw the finished show three tims at Jane Street and loved it. Steve Trask's score is amazing -- one of the very few REAL rock scores ever written for the theatre. The sound of the Hedwig cast album was so authentic that it actually made it on to the jukeboxes of several bars and restaurants in the East Village and the Lower East Side (places that would NEVER allow a cast album to be played -- the Rent cast album, for example, never made it into any of these places) where it blended in seemlessly side by side with the latest releases by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots etc...

I really hope Trask writes more for the theatre -- he's one of the very few writers and/or composers who understand how to write real rock (not pseudo-rock) and use it to tell a story and develop characters. The theatre desperately needs more writers like him.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 5:13pm

I love this show with a passion! I had the pleasure to musically direct and play the keyboard in two different mountings of the same production, one which ran briefly off-Broadway. It was an amazing experience, and I can't wait to do it again!

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 5:16pm

Thanks Margo for your wonderful post.

Hedwig is one of my favourite musicals, and is a work I hold close to my heart. I was so taken by its delicate marriage of irreverent humour and melancholic sadness, and how it reimagines Aristophanes' creation myth from Plato's Symposium. Every song from Hedwig is a real gem. I also think that Hedwig is one of the most amazing characters ever written for the musical theatre, and it must be such a rewarding experience to play him/her.

I thought the movie was fantastic, and every bit as good as the stage play. I was very pleased to discover how cinematic the filmic reimagining of Hedwig was, that it wasn't just the stage play splashed onto the screen. The stage and movie versions are two different beasts; it was see how faithful the movie was, and yet also how fresh and rich it was as well. I believe that the film version of Hedwig stands as one of the best movie musicals ever made.

Updated On: 11/13/04 at 05:16 PM

[Quasi]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 5:19pm

Right now I am coming from a German production of Hedwig near Dortmund. It was great fun and the audience was really amused, also the older people. I love the music and the movie ist great.

[Mimi Imfurst]

Posted: 11/14/04 at 9:06pm

The movie didnt quite capture the same life effecting energy that the stage show does. Someone once said to me, that sitting through a good performance is like being in the presence of something of devine ispirtation. I think he's right. The show is Amazing. I loved doing it and can't wait to do it again. (Which looks to be a reality for 2005) My same friend is working with trask on some new projects which look to be VERY promissing.

[VeuveClicquot]

Posted: 11/15/04 at 12:09am

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I didn't like HEDWIG when I first encountered it at the Jane Street Theatre. For whatever reason (I was probably just in a bad mood that night), its charms escaped me.

The film changed my mind completely, and I agree with BlueWizard that it's one of the best (if not THE best) filmed version of a musical ever. It's a treasure, and I'm so happy that it exists.

[midtowngym]

Posted: 11/15/04 at 6:33am

The movie was dull, bland and lost all the energy the live show had. It's a difficult show to adapt, but look at what Mike Nichols did with Angels in America. I asked a friend of John's to (anonymously) tell him to PLEASE stay on the stage and in FRONT of the cameras where I need him.

[Mary6906]

Posted: 11/15/04 at 8:01am

Ah, yes... I'm partial to Mr. Cahoon myself!!

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Video.aspx?ci=502152

[Mimi Imfurst]

Posted: 11/15/04 at 10:13am

Of course you are Mary! You're Mr Cahoons number one fan. that is, when david bowie isnt in town.

I think the movie is amazing, just not as amazing as the stage show.

[Mary6906]

Posted: 11/15/04 at 12:31pm

Oh, you know me so well! LOL
I'm missing Mr. Bowie though... I need a Bowie fix!