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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
Not entirely my cup of tea but I can appreciate the brilliance behind it. Trask and Mitchell have created an innovative and altogether original gem, and they deserve all the praise they get and more. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is raw and captivating and it deserves a chance at your attention. Recommended to anyone looking for something fresh in this sometimes stale genre.
Watching the movie as a teenager truly made a life-changing experience for me. We tend to feel very lonely, especially as a teenager. Not complete. And to be completed is to find someone that can complete us with love, or the other half.
But the truth is, we feel complete when we accept ourselves as we truly are. The thought can come to anyone, not only to teenagers. It's a universal story about love and acceptance.
After watching the movie for bazillion times, I watch the off-Broadway musical video, and the Broadway musical. It explores a deeper story about Hedwig that the movie didn't tell us. And reading the original script made me experiencing lots of realization again.
Thank you, John Cameron Mitchell for writing this musical. Maybe, it's only a story about a drag-rock-n-roll queen, but the meaning is much beyond that.
But the truth is, we feel complete when we accept ourselves as we truly are. The thought can come to anyone, not only to teenagers. It's a universal story about love and acceptance.
After watching the movie for bazillion times, I watch the off-Broadway musical video, and the Broadway musical. It explores a deeper story about Hedwig that the movie didn't tell us. And reading the original script made me experiencing lots of realization again.
Thank you, John Cameron Mitchell for writing this musical. Maybe, it's only a story about a drag-rock-n-roll queen, but the meaning is much beyond that.
This is one of those rare theatrical gems that comes across on the page with almost as much fire and heart as the production did. John Cameron Mitchell was best known for playing the boy hero in musicals like "Big River" and "The Secret Garden" when along with writing partner Stephen Trask he penned the story of a young man named Hansel searching for love and identity after he goes through a botched sex change to escape communist East Berlin as the wife of an American solider. Left with only an "angry inch" and going by the name "Hedwig" our hero/heroine falls in love with Tommy the son of born again Christians and together they write music of such heartbreaking beauty and thrashing anger its sure to take them straight to the top. Until Tommy, cracking under the strain of his love for Hedwig conflicting with his own deep seated self hatred and inability to acknowledge his own sexual identity, deserts her taking their songs with him. Reborn as Tommy Gnosis he becomes the greatest rockstar the world has ever known and Hedwig is left chasing him on his world tour with her own ragtag band playing in seedy clubs and restaurants down the street from Tommy's sold out stadium shows.
This is one of those things that just has to be experienced to be understood so I'd recommend getting your hands on the soundtrack so you can really hear it while you read. But I'll share my favorite lyric from the show's epic love ballad "The Origin of Love" a song that's long been my favorite just to give you a taste. Based on a story in Plato's "Symposium" it posits the idea that once there were three sexes made of two people joined together; men with men, women with women, and men with women. When we became too powerful and defiant the gods split us down the middle separating us from our other halves and dooming us to forever search for the missing piece of ourselves;
"Last time I saw you
We had just split in two
You were looking at me
I was looking at you
You had a way so familiar
But I could not recognize
Cause you had blood on your face
I had blood in my eyes
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine
That's the pain
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart
We called it love"
This is one of those things that just has to be experienced to be understood so I'd recommend getting your hands on the soundtrack so you can really hear it while you read. But I'll share my favorite lyric from the show's epic love ballad "The Origin of Love" a song that's long been my favorite just to give you a taste. Based on a story in Plato's "Symposium" it posits the idea that once there were three sexes made of two people joined together; men with men, women with women, and men with women. When we became too powerful and defiant the gods split us down the middle separating us from our other halves and dooming us to forever search for the missing piece of ourselves;
"Last time I saw you
We had just split in two
You were looking at me
I was looking at you
You had a way so familiar
But I could not recognize
Cause you had blood on your face
I had blood in my eyes
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine
That's the pain
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart
We called it love"
Reading the play makes me want to see it performed. A very interesting view on love that's heavily influenced by Plato.