Theater Review: Denver’s ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ is a Near-Flawless and Highly Professional Production

I was first introduced to the movie version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in college when my then-girlfriend made me watch it, and I completely fell in love with the story. I was a long way from realizing I was a part of the queer community back then, but there’s something so universal about searching for love and finding yourself instead that I found it to be a beautiful and poignant story. As a special present for my girlfriend at the time, I bought us tickets to a live production of the show, but she got a stomach bug and we had to stay home. So I had never seen a live edition of the show before.

Still, I’ve watched the movie a million times, and I’ve listened to all of the soundtracks. (The Neil Patrick Harris version on Broadway is the best version, and I will die on that hill.) As much as I love the movie, I have some serious issues with how they handled it,  particularly a section of “Sugar Daddy” that was cut from the film which changes the whole meaning of the story.

So, going into this local production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in Denver, produced by Give 5 Productions and directed by Kelly Van Oosbree, I came in loaded with strong opinions on how the show should be done. Still, I understood it was a local production and I prepared myself to be forgiving of any imperfections. Surprisingly, I didn’t need to be forgiving at all, as this didn’t feel a bit like local theater. In every way, this production felt as professional as anything I’ve seen in any theater.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I attended this production as a guest of the show’s assistant director and dramaturg, Katelyn Kendrick, who has been a friend of mine for some time. Kendrick and I had a lovely conversation before the show about whether or not the show is a trans story, and they shared with me the piece they wrote about the subject, which you should definitely read.

I want to take a moment to address that, because I know a lot of people say that Hedwig isn’t a trans story because Hedwig is forced into gender reassignment surgery against their will. But I disagree because, at the same time, the creator of the show, John Cameron Mitchell, has stated that the ending is about Hedwig finding their true gender, which is neither man nor woman, but more than both. In that sense, Hedwig is perhaps genderqueer, nonbinary, agender, or maybe even allogender. Regardless, those are all identities that fall under the transgender umbrella so, to me, it’s a trans story. It’s not a trans woman’s story, no, but it is a trans story because it’s about finding one’s true gender.

The Denver Hedwig performance started out with a drag pre-show, organized by local drag queen Jessica L’Whor. The pre-show will have a rotating cast of drag queens throughout the run of the show, but I have to comment on the queens at our performance. Khrys’taal, who opened with a Janet Jackson number, gave not just the best drag performance of the night, but one of the best drag performances I have ever seen. Petty Patty also did an absolutely fearless performance of Todrick Hall’s “Twerking in the Rain” that was a true delight to watch.

Okay, with no further ado, let’s get into the performance.

Hedwig, played by Clark Destin Jones, entered draped in an American flag, took a drink out of an audience member’s drink, and marched onto the stage to unveil their gorgeous and elaborate costume. As the band launched into the performance of the first musical number, I was immediately struck by how bold and confident Jones was. As he swung the microphone around and bounced around the stage, I was, at first, afraid that he would make a major mistake and ruin the number. Instead, he performed flawlessly and absolutely embodied the character. I was confident from the beginning that this was Hedwig.

Like I said, I have strong opinions on how the show should be performed, and, in my opinion, the show made all the right choices, starting with the beginning where they followed the tradition of the stage show rather than the film by opening with the line “Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not: Hedwig!” The show also followed the tradition of having Hedwig and Tommy Gnosis played by the same actor, another tradition that the film version doesn’t follow.

And that part of “Sugar Daddy” that the film cut that I feel changes the whole show? This production, smartly, left that section in. The lyrics in question are these:

“So, you think only a woman
Can truly love a man?
Well, you buy me the dress, I’ll be more woman
Than a man like you can stand”

That’s the part of the musical that makes it clear that Hedwig is transitioning because of pressure from others, not from their own choice. Without those lines in the song, the ending doesn’t particularly make sense.

Then there’s another choice to make that’s somewhat an impossible choice of whether to keep in the song “The Long Grift.” On the one hand, the song has a Romani slur in it which was more acceptable when the show was written in 1998. On the other hand, if you cut the song, then the actor who plays Hedwig/Tommy sings the whole show almost entirely by themselves, and the character of Yitzhak (played in this production by Anne Terze-Schwarz, but who will be played by Emma Rebecca Maxfield for the August 8-17 shows) has no solo song in the whole show.

In this production, they kept “The Long Grift,” but I noticed that Terze-Schwarz’s voice peaked right at the slur, making it difficult to hear, which was a pretty good solution to the problem. Even still, there were warnings posted everywhere in the theater about the show having themes of xenophobia, incest, forced gender reassignment, etc., so it’s not like nobody had fair warning of the offensive language.

About the only choice that the show made that I don’t agree with is that it didn’t include the song “Random Number Generation,” but I can hardly fault them for that because virtually no production has kept that song in since the original off-Broadway run. The song was most likely cut from subsequent productions because it doesn’t really advance the plot, so I guess that’s a legitimate choice. Still, it’s a great song, and I’ve always wanted to see someone put it back in the show.

One of the traditions of the show is to adapt it to the location where the production is being held, which this production did perfectly. Jones’ dialogue included references to local landmarks in Denver and even mentioned the real-life fact that the show had to change its venue from Herman’s Hideaway to The Arch in RiNo after they began rehearsals. They even had the fateful Tommy Gnosis car crash, which is a central part of the plot, take place on Colfax somewhere around Casa Bonita.

To play Hedwig, the actor has to be able to not just act, sing, and play both guitar and keyboards, they also have to be able to improvise and play off of what’s happening in the audience. Jones did this beautifully, interacting with the audience and incorporating what was happening in the theater into his dialogue. It’s part of disappearing into the character, and it made Jones an even more believable Hedwig.

One of my favorite songs in the whole show, and my favorite song to sing at karaoke, is “Wig in a Box.” I’m not exaggerating when I say that this performance of “Wig in a Box” was not only better than the one in the movie, it was better than any version of the soundtrack I’ve heard. What this production did better than all those other versions was that it did a better job of capturing how devastated Hedwig is at the beginning of the song following her divorce and then gradually ramped up the energy from there. Jones captured Hedwig’s heartache at the beginning of the song better than even the greats like John Cameron Mitchell and Neil Patrick Harris, which made it even more satisfying when the song reaches its emotional climax.

Of course, it was opening night, and there were some minor mistakes, but mostly ones that you would only notice if you knew all the lyrics to the songs by heart. The most noticeable mistake came when Jones accidentally turned off his own microphone in the middle of “Angry Inch” and couldn’t quickly figure out how to turn it back on. Terze-Schwarz quickly gave him her microphone and then figured out how to turn his mic back on, allowing the song to continue uninterrupted.

Another more minor mistake came when Jones seemed to forget the lyrics to the first chorus of the closing number “Midnight Radio.” I doubt that people less versed in the show than myself even noticed the mistake. But the true test of a professional isn’t whether they make mistakes; it’s how they handle those mistakes, and Jones did exactly what every actor should do in that situation: He didn’t call attention to his mistake; he found his moment to get back into the song, and he didn’t let it shake his confidence even a little bit. Once he got back into the song, he was as fearless as he had been on every other number, and pulled off an absolutely tearjerking performance of the final song. I’ll admit, I cried at the very end of the number.

I may have never seen this show on Broadway, which has always been a regret of mine. But would a Broadway production, or even the original off-Broadway production, be better than what I saw? Certainly, it would have been full of people who are getting paid more money and who have formal training from more prestigious schools and all of that. But I honestly can’t imagine being any more impressed by the great Neil Patrick Harris and his castmates than I was by Clark Destin Jones and his. In fact, the fact that it didn’t have the budget of a Broadway production made it even more impressive that the production was so well done. This isn’t just budget community theater; this isn’t an amateur production of Hedwig. This is Hedwig as it was always meant to be done.

Rating: 98/100

Opening night was sold out, and tickets are going fast! There are only 11 shows, so get your tickets here while you still can!

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