Cult shows never die; they’re just reborn at a time of their own choosing. Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell’s defiantly genderqueer rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch returns at what feels like the perfect juncture, as the tides of history turn and trans people around the world are threatened with violence and erasure. A vivid and electrifying middle finger to intolerance and hate, Hedwig seems more necessary than ever.
The role of Hedwig, a “slip of a girlyboy”, has long been coveted by musical theatre performers in a similar way that Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is sought after by great actors – as a kind of zenith of the craft. The characters share certain qualities: they’re quixotic and mercurial, tragicomic and self-mythologising; they can be incredibly cruel to the people around them; they love more passionately and completely than mere mortals.They’re grand queens who command undivided attention.
