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Comedy

REVIEW: Hedwig & The Angry Inch: New Venture Theatre

May 19, 2014

Hedwig & The Angry Inch

New Venture Theatre, Bedford Pl, Hove, East Sussex BN1 2PT

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“Internationally ignored song stylist” Hedwig Schmidt is a fourth-wall smashing East German rock ‘n’ roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a botched sex-change operation. Leaving her with just an angry inch. As in the live band that supports her through this incredibly funny and inspirational story.

Hedwig is on a ‘stalker tour’ following a certain rock star she has a connection to. Her travels have brought her all the way to the New Venture Theatre in this dazzling and rocking piece of site specific, musical theatre.

Hedwig owned the stage and the audience from the first entrance. The seen better days costume was wonderful and a conviction of an aggressive drag queen from Berlin was firmly made. Hedwig made me feel excited, she was funny, entertaining, this felt like watching a story of her life, highly subjective and edited.  The set was ironic grunge and the costumes looked like they had been slept in, exactly what is called for in this story of being on and being ground down by The Road. Well-done New Venture on getting the tone of this just right.

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Jonny Parlett was convincing in the tremulous and demanding main role, by turns tender, angry and beseeching but always charming with a slight edge of teasy menace. This is an easy role to get wrong but Parlett brought a believable passion from his first entrance flaunt to the last desperate grasping for identity. With enough honest openness to allow Hedwig to seem human as well as a marvellous self-creation this performance never lagged for a moment, giving us moments of high camp crashing down into an abyss of sadness and disappointment, but always with the whiplash of hope, strong beautiful defiant hope which is the core of Hedwig’s story.

Hedwig is a vulnerable person, burned by her upbringing and saddened by her life. Parlett explored her being taken advantage of, manipulated by men and her older lover wanting to use her for his own entertainment not caring about the future or happiness. There was genuine sadness that her mother seemed to only want her out of her life but this reflection on pain was struck through with endless (seemingly) off the cuff comments and the deliciously dark humour of J.C. Mitchell and his own very personal experince as the musical is based on his own life.  The humour of Hedwig is one of the reasons I love this play so much, and the gummi bear soliloquy was timed perfectly for the pathos, scurrility and raw humour to come bounding out.

As the story continued Hedwig became more aggressive, burned by her life, fuelled by the toxic mix of hope and tragedy that runs through this play. Jonny Parlett hinted at Hedwig hiding her hate by hating everyone around her and managed the tender exposure of finding loves recovery with the right amount of frailty and fear.

The band brought the music out rough and full of raw emotion and it felt like we were part of a tour, the lighting rig working overtime to make the Venture space feel much bigger than it actually is. The sound quality was a little one directional to start but that might have been intentional but it did make the lead singers difficult to pick out on occasion.  The Angry Inch band felt like an authentic touring band the stage crew/roadie/supporting crowd from the rest of the Venture crew were fun and very subtle in their quick changes. This constantly moving dynamic was one of the high points of the eventing allowing Parletts Hedwig to strut like a demented Peacock through the higher vaults of hysteria without losing momentum.

My friend Travis came along with me, and stroked Hedwig’s inner thigh, he was ‘well impressed’ with the show.

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This production of Hedwig is great fun and holds the energy levels right up there until the very last moment, the audience were thrilled at this performance and a lot of them were on their feet at the end showing their appreciation of the efforts of this slick and passionate team in entertaining us all so well. Hedwig’s are often funny or mad, or sexy or lyrical it’s a rare performance that manages to balance all the tensions of this most complex of characters and supporting characters and still allow the funnies to shine.

This is an authentic production of Hedwig keeping to the spirit and intention of John Cameron  Mitchell’s writing and giving us a Hedwig who demands our unconditional love whilst slightly scaring us with the intensity of a life lived at full throttle.

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