The Conical Glass: Stockholm Diary #7: I am a lame blogger

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Stockholm Diary #7: I am a lame blogger

I know I promised to blog every day, and now I've just skipped three days. Once again, my admiration for the iron men of blogging grows.

I have been busy, though! So very busy! Last night Joe & I went to see the Swedish production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." I thought perhaps it was the first time "Hedwig" had been translated into a foreign language, but according to Wikipedia it's been produced in Korea, Japan and Peru. (You can watch the Korean Hedwig sing "Tear Me Down" on YouTube.)

For the non-initiates, "Hedwig" tells the story of young Hans, who grew up on the east side of the Berlin Wall. One day he is spotted by an American G.I. who is attracted to the feminine-looking lad and offers to take him to the U.S. However, before he can leave, Hans needs to pass a medical inspection, which leads to a botched sex change operation. Hedwig and the G.I. eventually divorce, and she becomes the mentor and lover of a teenage boy, the son of an army general. The boy, Tommy, and Hedwig write songs together, and Tommy eventually turns into a huge rock star who forsakes his former lover and takes the songs she wrote as his own. The conceit of the play (which is very different from the movie -- I prefer the stage version) is that Tommy is playing a huge outdoor rock concert while Hedwig is spilling her guts to a much smaller audience indoors; in San Francisco, "Hedwig" played the slightly shabby old Victoria Theater and Tommy's concert was supposed to be taking place at SBC Park. In Stockholm, "Hedwig" is playing the large Stockholm Stadsteater, which kind of changes the meaning of the play. A couple lines of dialogue have been inserted so Hedwig cheekly alleges that she used her sexual wiles on the head of the theater to get the gig.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was one of the biggest "Hedwig"s ever -- the stage is huge, and instead of just Hedwig and her band, the cast is augmented by seven dancers. I was a little dubious about that addition until the song "Sugar Daddy," in which the dancers don gummy bear costumes for an outrageously funny production number.

Really, though, the book and score of "Hedwig" are bulletproof so it all comes down to the man in the wig. Johannes Bah Kuhnke does an excellent job -- I mean, look at this photo of him, he doesn't look the least bit Hedwig-like, yet I thought he perfectly captured the character, and he totally rocks out, too. (The decibel level is appropriately rock concert-loud.) Director/translator Farnaz Arbabi did an excellent job with the script, staying faithful to the story and adding a couple local touches of her own -- there were times when I forgot I was watching Hedwig speak Swedish. Unfortunately, Joe never quite got to that point, but at least the music sounds fab in any language. If you're a diehard "Hedwig" fan like I am, you'd even go see it in Korean.

posted by 125records @ 8:39 AM

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