John Cameron Mitchell’s grunge musical is the strangest of shows. It combines the kind of high-camp monologue you’d expect at a cabaret club – all knowing narcissism and arch innuendo – with a set of authentically scuzzy rock songs that recall the sounds of a 90s basement dive. Neither has much to do with the other. Dating from 1998, the show prefigures the gig-theatre wave of the last decade and yet exists in its own self-referential universe, too sketchy for narrative engagement, too meandering for emotional impact.
In 2022, some aspects seem stranger still. Maybe we can accept Hedwig’s origins in communist East Berlin, but the jokes about Manhattan districts and US middle-of-the-road bands are from another place and time.
