Do not be alarmed by recent reports that Neil Patrick Harris, an irresistibly wholesome television presence, has fallen deeply and helplessly into the gap that separates men from women, East from West, and celebrity from notoriety. There's no need to fear for his safety, much less his identity. Quite the contrary.
Playing an "internationally ignored song stylist" of undefinable gender in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," Mr. Harris is in full command of who he is and, most excitingly, what he has become with this performance. That's a bona fide Broadway star, the kind who can rule an audience with the blink of a sequined eyelid.
You may have assumed that Mr. Harris had won that status already. As the indefatigably charming M.C. of the Tony Awards in recent years, he has given life and luster to a creaky ceremony. And he's logged hours on Broadway stages before, notably in the 2004 revival of the Sondheim-Weidman musical "Assassins."
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But he has never had to carry a full-scale production on his shoulders, as he does in "Hedwig," John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask' s 1998 rock musical memoir, which opened at the Belasco Theater on Tuesday night. And while Mr. Harris may let you see him sweat as he struts, slithers and leaps through this shamelessly enjoyable show, rousingly directed by Michael Mayer ("Spring Awakening," "American Idiot"), he never makes it feel like heavy lifting.
Mr. Harris is toting more than his own persona — and a hefty assortment of diva wigs and costumes. He also carries the main responsibility for hoisting a taboo-flouting tale of life on the margins into the mainstream environs of Broadway. First staged in downtown Manhattan with Mr. Mitchell as its star, "Hedwig" tells the story of an East German "slip of a girlyboy" who becomes (almost) a woman, (almost) an American and (almost) a rock star.
Foulmouthed, electrically tuneful and furiously funny, with explicit descriptions of its title character's bungled sex-change operation and erotic adventures, "Hedwig" developed a cult following that kept it running off Broadway for two years, with ! subsequent production around the world.
Still, when the film version was released in 2001, directed by and starring Mr. Mitchell, Stephen Holden began his review in The New York Times by asking, "Is the world ready for Hedwig?" The Angry Inch, after all, refers not only to Hedwig's backup band, but also to what was left of her male genitalia after surgery.
The Evolution of Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris has commanded big roles on both stage and screen. His next challenge will be to play the lead in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" on Broadway.
Publish Date February 19, 2014
Credit Yoshi Kametani
In the subsequent 13 years, mainstream America has become more aware, if not always more welcoming, of people of fluid sexual identity, with Barneys New York presenting an entire ad campaign featuring transgender models. This season alone, Broadway has been host to many men in women's clothes, from Mark Rylance as a countess in "Twelfth Night" to most of the cast of Harvey Fierstein's "Casa Valentina."
But "Hedwig" and Hedwig are neither cuddly nor (sorry, old girl) particularly pretty. The anger is as much a part of her makeup as the glitter. Pain has left her voice raw, and Mr. Trask's music, at least as it was first heard, matched Hedwig's rough edges.
What's more, the whole point of Hedwig was that she wasn't big time, unlike her much reviled, much missed former lover, Tommy Gnosis, a rock star who's successfully rebooted his career (with Hedwig's songs). How do you justify the advent of a tarnished never-was on the Great White Way?
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Well, you start with a sassily tweaked script, which has the title character taking over the Belasco for one night — following some, er, gentle persuasion of a Shubert Organization producer — after the premature demise of its previous tenant, "Hurt Locker: The Musical." This allows the witty designer Julian Crouch to come up with a ludicrously extravagant set, which depicts a besieged cityscape frozen in midexplosion. And how about some naughty eye candy in the form of cartoon projections by Benjamin Pearcy for 59 Produ! ctions?
Then you bring in Mr. Harris, who had two hit series on television ("Doogie Howser, M.D." and "How I Met Your Mother"), to lure in less adventurous theatergoers. And you dress him up in fab over-the-top rock goddess outfits (by Arianne Phillips, stylist costumer to Madonna), with flashy wigs and makeup (by Mike Potter) to set off his familiar, sculptured face.
But Mr. Harris has much more than marquee and recognition value. He also has a master entertainer's gift for making the rough go down smoothly. And what might be distasteful from other mouths — including raunchy double entendres that deserve (and receive) rimshots — sounds delicious coming from his. From the moment his Hedwig makes her David Bowie-esque entrance, we're his t! o do what he will.
That includes a certain amount of manhandling, if I may use so sexist a verb. In song and guttural speech, Hedwig is an aggressive narrator. (Note to front-row audience members: Don't wear anything expensive.) Supported by a scrappy six-member band — which includes her oft-humiliated boyfriend, Yitzhak (an excellent Lena Hall) — Hedwig confrontationally delivers a history that covers her East German childhood (she was born in 1961), her seduction by an American soldier and her transplanted Kansas life as a blue-collar gal with red satin dreams.
The musical numbers, which borrow loosely from the vernacular of glam rock, punk and R&B, are loud, for sure. As performed by Mr. Harris and Ms. Hall, they are also, improba! bly, as infectiously tuneful as anything else on Broadway now. (My personal favorite: "The Origin of Love," though every one's a crowd pleaser.)
Mr. Harris milks maximal variation from what is merely a serviceable tenor. His dance moves feel like such a natural extension of Hedwig's confrontational personality that you forget that they've been carefully choreographed (by Spencer Liff).
Similarly, you may feel that our Hedwig is improvising as she riffs on subjects that now include the history of the Belasco, social media and Anderson Cooper. She's not; I checked the script later. Mr. Harris is giving a highly disciplined performance that has the graceful illusion of sometimes clumsy spontaneity. And while Hedwig's assured performer's mask! may occasionally slip, it is only to reveal more of Hedwig, n! ot Mr. Harris.
And what a lot there is to reveal. Hedwig's persona may be as solid as the Berlin Wall she grew up behind. But such walls have a way of eventually tumbling down. As carefully lit by Kevin Adams, Hedwig's face can suddenly look shockingly naked, even before the real stripping down that provides this show with its stirring climax. And you sense the deep fear of powerlessness behind this seeming genius of crowd control.
The man playing Hedwig never loses control, though. With this show, Mr. Harris joins an elite club of musical-comedy male supernovas that has exactly one other member these days, Hugh Jackman.
Hedwig, who loves a! good (or bad) metaphor, is fond of saying that she's both a bridge and a wall. Mr. Harris is primarily functioning as a bridge here: between the unorthodox and the conventional, the perceptions of male and female, and a stage and an audience. Crossing that bridge with him turns out to be one of the few unqualified pleasures of this Broadway spring.
A theater review on Wednesday about the musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," starring the actor Neil Patrick Harris, misidentified one of the collaborators responsible for "Assassins," another musical in which Mr. Harris has appeared. John Weidman wrote the book, not James Lapine. (The music and lyrics were written by Stephen Sondheim.)
Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/theater/hedwig-and-the-angry-inch-stars-neil-patrick-harris.html
