'Hedwig and The Angry Inch'

A Review by Elyse Trevers

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From Dougie to Barney to Hedwig, the multi-talented Neil Patrick Harris continues to delight audiences. Followers of the long running television series How I Met Your Mother mourned the end of the show featuring super-womanizer Barney Stimson. Fortunately, Harris has lost no time in returning to his fans and is now starring as Hedwig. Transgender Hedwig is a performer who shares her depressing background. Raised in East Germany before the wall came down, Hedwig suffered an unhappy childhood. She met an American soldier with whom she fells in love. He wants to bring her to America but can only bring his wife, so Hedwig has a sex change operation. Unfortunately it was botched, leaving an angry inch of flesh. (Hence the title of her band — and the show.)

Hedwig recalls a touching story his mother told him about love. The tale, borrowed from Aristophanes's discourse on love from Plato's Symposium, tells of the gods splitting the races in half to weaken them. Like those split in half, Hedwig is seeking Love, his other half.

The revival of the 1998 award winning Off-Broadway show is directed by Michael Mayer (American Idiot Spring Awakening) and this show shares some of the same characteristics as his other musicals, including audience demographics, frenetic pacing and high decibels. The amps in the theater are turned way up and the theater literally rocks. The dialogue, right out of popular culture, includes very current references. This music numbs your ears, so if loud doesn't work for you, skip this show.

But you'll be missing an outrageous performance by Harris in his long blonde wigs, short skirts and short shorts. He is lithe, athletic and coarse. He interacts with the audience and woe is you if your phone goes off. (Hedwig really embarrassed the person in the fourth row.)

The very talented Lena Hall portrays Hedwig's 'husband’ Yitzhak. She’s submissive and deferential, tending to Hedwig’s needs and demands. At first, Hall sings in a husky voice but later gets to belt out a number. It may take a while before some in the audience realize that he's really a she.

Hedwig and The Angry Inch isn’t for the mainstream tourist who wants something to sing as he leaves. However, fans of rock music that don’t mind lots of sexual innuendos will love this show. As for Harris — he is “Legen ...wait for it ... Dary. Legendary.”