Hedwig and the Angry Inch
**
I was blown away when I first saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway 10 years ago and wish I’d seen the original off-Broadway production almost 20 years before that, in what I imagine was all its raw angry energy. Given the current reactionary wave of hostility towards trans, gender-queer and non-binary people in the US and elsewhere, this revival is timely but disappointing.
Part of the problem is the cavernous architecture and acoustic of the Queen’s Theatre, which does the production no favours in terms of visual or auditory focus, especially for a show that of necessity features a live amplified rock band and lead singer.
Sadly, however, the casting of reality TV star/singer Seann Miley Moore as Hedwig is also a problem. The role requires someone who’s primarily an actor-singer rather than a singer-performer, no matter how fabulous they are and whether or not they identify as gender-queer.
In the musical, Hedwig doesn’t identify as trans, non-binary or even gender-queer. The story is that of a gay man who dressed as a woman and had botched gender reassignment surgery to please her lover before becoming her true self. As the original creator John Cameron Mitchell said in an interview in 2022: “She’s more than a woman or a man. She’s a gender of one, and that is accidentally so beautiful.”
In this regard, it’s surely no accident that after her operation Hedwig becomes a 70s-style glam-rock star, as her iconic glam-rock precursors (like Mark Bolan and David Bowie, and arguably later Prince) were also actor-performers as much as they were singers. They resisted being identified and their explorations of androgyny, bisexuality and gender-queerdom were essentially performative.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask
Queen’s Theatre
Text: John Cameron Mitchell
Music and Lyrics: Steven Trask
Co-Directors: Shane Anthony and Dino Dimitriadis
Musical Director: Victoria Falconer
Set Designer: Jeremy Allen
Costume Design: Nicol & Ford
Performer: Seann Miley Moore with a live band
Hedwig and the Angry Inch will be performed until 15 March as part of Adelaide Festival.
Camille O’Sullivan: Loveletter
****
A more satisfying trip down memory lane was with Irish cabaret artist Camille O’Sullivan and her show Loveletter.
O’Sullivan is also primarily an actor-singer with a carefully constructed stage persona (including chaotic hair, laddered stockings and gold shoes held together with duct tape), but she performs under her own name, so the line between performer and persona is a little more blurred. She also has a phenomenal voice, with a slightly smoky late-night bar quality and heartfelt expressiveness reminiscent of Bonnie Raitt.
Her repertoire was dedicated to singers and songwriters who died recently, including three fellow Irish ones (Sinead O’Connor, Shane McGowan and Kirsty MacColl, who died in 2000), whom she’s known and admired (and even toured with, in the case of McGowan), at least one from the glam/prog/alt rock tradition (Bowie) and a couple from an earlier era (Leonard Cohen, Jacques Brel). Stand-outs included the McGowan/MacColl classic ‘Fairytale of New York’, a Bowie medley that began with his fragile swansong ‘Where Are We Now’ that segued into the early existential-angst-ridden ‘Quicksand’ (“Knowledge comes with death’s release”), Radiohead’s deranged post-prog epic ‘Paranoid Android’, Cohen’s ‘Anthem’ (“There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in”) and an a cappella rendition of Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’.
Read: Musical review: MJ The Musical, Sydney Lyric Theatre
Accompanied in classic cabaret style on piano and keys by versatile long-time collaborator Feargal Murray, O’Sullivan made all the songs uniquely her own. The show went for two hours including intermission. The patter between songs occasionally overstayed its welcome, but overall she had us in the palm of her hand. We were in the presence of a consummate interpretative artist and actor-singer.
Camille O’Sullivan: Loveletter
Her Majesty’s Theatre
Camille O’Sullivan: Loveletter was performed 4–5 March 2025 as part of Adelaide Festival.
