Review: (Ottawa / Theatre) Hedwig and the Angry Inch

An Angry Inch Short of Perfection
by Sonia Blanchette 

Hedwig and The Angry Inch has received accolades and ultimate cult status. Time Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine and The New York Times among others have heaped their praises on this gender bending rock and roll musical. It is exactly this type of show that should be the answer to growing the new age of theatre patrons, so the buzz and anticipation for this show is palpable.

Not being much of an expert or cult aficionado myself, I wasn't sure what to expect. From the moment that Hedwig, played by Tim Oberholzer, appears on stage, the crowd is sucked in by an overwhelming electricity that immediately manifests itself by tapping feet and bopping heads. Alas, unlike some, I was unable to lip-sync along as I knew not the lyrics. The reality is I have never been much of a concert goer and I now question if I missed out big time. This felt nothing like conventional theatre, it is a powerful musical manifestation! 

In a Word... Tim Oberholzer on Hedwig and The Angry Inch

Hedwigging Out
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Tim Oberholzer is an Ottawa-based actor, theatre creator, producer, and graduate of Algonquin College’s Theatre Arts Program. He is also a recent nominee for the 2013 Emerging Artist Award from Ottawa’s professional theatre awards, Les Prix Rideau. Mr Oberholzer has most recently appeared in Age Of Arousal,  The Comedy Of Errors, The Taming Of The Shrew, (Bear & Co.), Ethan Claymore (Same Day Theatre) and The Chronicler (Screaming Artists’ Collective). Tim Oberholzer is a founding member of the Ottawa-based theatre collective Bear and Co., and also serves on the advisory board of SevenThirty Productions.  He is the artistic director of Vanity Project Productions and oversees the Ottawa Theatre Producers’ Network.

CHARPO:  First off, what brought you to Hedwig?

OBERHOLZER: My first connection to the piece was through the Original Off Broadway Cast Recording, which I purchased purely out of curiosity. I was immediately  struck by how beautiful, powerful and accessible the music was. I’ve performed in a few rock musicals over the years, and have always been a fan of the genre, but this is definitely one of the best rock musical scores out there. At the time I had taken a break from producing, but I definitely filed it away mentally as a potential future project. After seeing the subsequently released film adaptation, I was only more intrigued by the show and the Hedwig character, so sought out the script and since then have just been waiting for the right conditions to present themselves. 

Review: (Toronto) Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Reviving the Blast

by Christian Baines

It’s hard to imagine the ice water blast of originality that Hedwig and the Angry Inch must have seemed when it debuted in New York in 1998. With a film version released not three years after, the underground trans punk became a household name – at least within certain subcultures (the kind the show appealed to in the first place). For all Hedwig’s success, it has never quite broken through to the mainstream. Then again, perhaps that’s the very reason for the show’s endurance. Far from the campiness of Rocky Horror, or the squeaky-clean, sitcom images of Queer acceptance emerging at the time, it was content to be part of the cool and freaky kids’ culture in 1998. It’s still that now.

This longevity is no doubt helped by energetic productions like this one, from Breathe.Feel.Love, which fires up The Drake Underground with a mix of revolution and disillusion perfectly suited to John Cameron Mitchell’s oddball story. 

The Abominable Showman, November 6, 2011

Another brick in the wall

Rock’n’Roll proves it is fertile ground for great theatre

by Richard Burnett

Rock’n’Roll and theatre have always gone hand-in-hand. Like beer and pretzels, milk and cookies, and lips and cocks. And there is a whole lot of the latter going on in backstage dressing rooms in both the Rock’n’Roll and theatre worlds.

I myself have never succumbed to the casting couch although I used to be a hustler when I was broke and living in Sydney many years ago. I was 23-years-old and used to work “The Wall” in Darlinghurst. 

But I digress.