Words by Mandy DelVecchio // Photo by Eugene Hyland
From communist East Berlin to a Kansas trailer park, to a dive bar near you, Hedwig and the Angry Inch tells a tragic, seductive, and poignant story of survival and identity amid an explosive glam rock soundtrack. The ‘Inch is like a party you pinch yourself you’ve been invited to. And the current iteration of John Cameron Mitchell and Steven Trask’s sexy queer tragedy has been so delicately handled and delivered with class, Australian audiences will never forget their one impactful night with the diva.
Genius casting sees breakout star Seann Miley Moore (Miss Saigon, The Voice) rocket the lead role, complemented by an unforgettable performance in the wings from Adam Noviello (Jesus Christ Superstar) as Yitzhak, Hedwig’s antagonist, bandmate and “other half”. With a script that stays true to the original, co-directors, Shane Anthony and Dino Dimitriadis have emboldened the cultish lore of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and secured her relevance with razor sharp style. Embalmed in a pulsating aesthetic-tapestry of industrial stage design, precision lighting artistry, and costumery that speaks to Marie Antoinette if she shared a wardrobe with David Bowie (Nicol Ford), Hedwig sees out her Naarm season at the divine Athenaeum theatre as part of the 2025 RISING Festival, and within this space, in this construct, she’s in great hands.
Told by Hedwig herself, the fable unfolds of a punk rock-loving ‘slip of girly-boy’, Hansel Schmidt who flees a tortured, loveless childhood in East Berlin on the coattails of an American GI. Driven by the promise of a better life, and by a romantic philosophy plucked straight out of Plato’s Symposium–of finding one’s other half, or missing piece, Hedwig Robinson (nee Hansel Schmidt) arrives in Kansas as a woman following a botched gender reassignment surgery that left her with an inch-high mound of flesh where their genitalia once. Pretty soon she finds herself abandoned by her sugar daddy in a mid-West trailer park and with nothing left but a cheap blonde wig and a heart full of broken dreams, Hedwig turns to her first true love, rock n roll, and the rest is, well, herstory.
The opening track positions the tone early.
“Don’t you know me, Kansas City?
I’m the New Berlin wall!
Try and tear me down!”
The setting of the whole show is a Midwest dive bar in the late 90s. Hedwig is fronting her band of queer music disciples, ‘The Angry Inch’; a cheeky nod to her Achilles, and the first evidence of proof she won’t be knocked down by her fate. In her band is her second husband and backing vocalist, Yitzhak, a gentle and oppressed Croatian drag queen Hedwig met on tour in Europe. The tension between the two is immediate and unguarded, and while comical at first, the subtle exchanges very early on help expose our lead’s pain points.
Musically, The Angry Inch band is exceptional, and the room is masterfully worked by Jamie Mensforth (sound design) and Jason Sweeney (soundscape). Lead by celebrated multi-disciplinary, Victoria Falconer (musical director) on keys, the outfit is tight and just right. A band that obviously believes in every note and every lyric and every importance of the story. Falconer is joined by Glenn Moorhouse (guitars, associate music director), Felicity Freeman (bass) and Jarrod Payne (drums), and the foursome confidently scaffold Seann Miley Moore’s dynamic voice with pure rock virtuosity as they shred through Steven Trask’s iconic score.
Seann Miley Moore comes out hot, somehow bolder, sexier, and shrewder than any Hedwig before them. Their vocal capabilities and stage presence is unshrinkable as we meet Hedwig for the first time. Draped in patchwork denim and fishnet, top and tailed by knee-high denim stilettos and a crown of blonde bouffant, Hedwig glamours me from the opening mark, it’s Vivienne Westwood meets Priscilla, and I’m a goner.
To summarise the plot would be to minimise the sheer depth of Hedwig’s iconic journey as a poignant cultural reference spanning across decades. It is an enjoyable deep dive for those willing to explore her relevance. From intimate drag bars in the mid 90s where creator John Cameron Mitchell first developed the character of Hedwig for friends, to today, the riotous diva has morphed and traversed the queer cultural waves with the finesse of a punk rock butterfly as she carved out her righteous place in the zeitgeist.
The production and protagonist alike stand the test of time and might possibly be more important now than she ever was. You don’t have to be a musical theatre nerd to appreciate Hedwig, it’s a truly come as you are production. Less musical theatre and more intimate stadium rock gig, be dragged through post-war East Berlin, Midwest America in the 80s, to the present, through chaotic and affecting monologues, impacting punk and glam rock songs buffered by cheek-flushing innuendo, glitter cannons, balloon drops, and audience participation. What feels like harmless fun, soon lures you into the deeply heart- aching arc of a broken human longing for a missing piece. It’s a rock concert but it’s also a party, but it’s also a funeral.
The finale takes no prisoners. Glamour and humour drains from the stage like blood from a corpse as we experience one of the most haunting performances of the show, Midnight Radio. Noviello and Moore soar through this Bowie-esque duel with rock’n’roll ease. Wailing guitars, the shroud marking the end of the butterfly era. Shaking off her proverbial wings, Hedwig returns to the stage wigless, topless, strong. The power of the song and of the final transition is palpable. Is this the end of Hedwig’s searching and the beginning of the raw, and truer self, perhaps an acceptance of every angry inch of oneself?
Hedwig is all of us. A classic tale of the duality of human existence. In a time where image is everything, but identity is becoming harder to nail, Hedwig is the radical reminder we all need to express what needs expressing, to be bold and brave and unafraid to metamorphosise and stand out. In a time when we strive for individualism but crave community, finding our missing pieces might be the most important work we will ever do in this life, and Hedwig reminds us to have the courage to move through your life in punkish power and be willing to lose a little piece here and there.
But the key take home for me? No matter where you come from, or how you identify, if you’re a disciple of music, when a good rock song hits, you’ll find your belonging, body shakingly and whole-heartedly.
