Music by the Inch

Hedwig rocks the Seacoast

By Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

Hedwig and the Angry Inch plays at Portsmouth’s Seacoast Repertory Theatre, on Fri. and Sat. at midnight, through August 26. Call (603) 433-4472.

HEDWIG, played drag-tastically by Constantine Maroulis.

Though it is described as a “glam-punk musical,” going to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch ©t the Seacoast Repertory at midnight is more like going to hear an idiosyncratic punk band/lounge act than a musical. (Oh, and it has nothing to do with Harry Potter.)

The club-like feel begins with the staging. There is none. Four axes, three amps, a keyboard, and an electric drum set on a riser. Black background. The musicians filter in, tune their instruments, ignore the crowd, smoke. There’s plenty of leather, black lipstick, and tattoos. After a while, the keyboardist signals the others, and they begin like they’ve been playing for hours — loud and thick with guitars. The lights go out, and Hedwig makes her entrance. She throws off a long blue cape and sunglasses and begins to wail into the mic.

At first glance, Hedwig is a little frightening. Long blonde wig, purple and black eye shadow, she contorts her lanky body and twists her thin face into each lyric of “Tear Me Down.” You can see the shave marks on her exposed navel. She is Steven Tyler crossed with Gwyneth Paltrow.

When the song ends, she sinks into a stool, and begins to tell her story in a thick German accent. And it is not long before you can’t help but like her. She describes herself as a “girl-boy from East Berlin,” and begins a night full of wise cracks and dâuble entendre with “When it comes to huge openings, many people think of me.” She slips and calls Portsmouth “Portshit” several times, only to be corrected by Skszp (pronounced like it’s spelled), her keyboardist/songwriter.

A collaboration between John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, Hedwig and the Angry Inch began off-off Broadway and grew into an off-Broadway hit. The unique character of Hedwig was based on a prostitute a young Trask used to visit in a trailer park to hear her incredible stories and drink her beer. The movie version of the show recently won the Best Film Award at Sundance. (Since Portland is not even among the second group of smaller cities in its release, Mainers who don’t want to trek down to Harvard Square for a movie will have to wait a while for the film.) But though the film looks pr¼mising — former Hüsker Dü/Sugar alt-rocker Bob Moulds leads the band — I have my doubts about whether it can do the same kind of justice to the music and the story as a live performance.

The story, as Hedwig — incredibly played here by Constantine Maroulis — tells us, is complicated. I won’t give you the whole thing, but suffice it to say that it involves a young rock star — Tommy Gnosis — who hits a school bus full of children while receiving a blow job from Hedwig, then later tries to deny their relationship and her musical influence. Hedwig tells about her German childhood as Hansel, a boy raised by a single mother who teaches sculpture to limbless children. She tells us of Luther, tüe GI who led her to a botched sex change, married her, then dumped her in a trailer in Kansas. We also find out about the hot/cold relationship of Hedwig and the quiet-except-when-he/she’s-singing-backup vocalist, Yitzhak, played by Claudia Koziner. HXdwig croons in his/her direction, “If you behave, I’ll let you shave my back tonight.”

What propels the story — and the show overall — is the music. Hedwig and her band, The Angry Inch, played by local rockers Bedbug Eddy, show they can do quiet ballads and country as well as the hard stuff. “Origin of Love” is a sweet bedtime story about finding your other half, sung to Hansel by his mother. “Sugar Daddy” is a sexy little number during which they pass around a bowl of gummi bears. “Angry Inch,” the story of Hedwig’s botched operation, gives early Megadeth a run for their hard-chugging money. There’s not a flat song — or one that’s there only for plot purposes — among them.

With each song and the gabbing in between, we piece together the contradictions that are Hedwig. She continually keeps the audience off-balance with comedy and never lets the story sink into sentimentality. On her period as a prostitute: “I had lost my job at the base Px and my gag reflex — you do the math.” She also stands close enough, and stares out into the audience long enough, that you can see her tears.

There’s really no way to do justice to a show like Hedwig and the Angry Inch in a review. It is a punk tour de force, a gender-bending testimonial, a mixed-up, messed-up tale of a person who defies definition, who makes the very idea of needing to define people, define a show, silly. It is a story that ends with Hedwig — sans wig and most of her costume — with one thin arm and fist in the air. The audience can only do the same.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc can be reached at riverbetweenus@hotmail.com.