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From his vantage point onstage behind his drums, Peter Yanowitz observes theatergoers reacting and relating to the outsize character of Hedwig.
"I've seen nine or 10 Hedwigs interpret this role, and it's endlessly fascinating," says Yanowitz, a Utah-reared musician who performed as the drummer Schlatko on Broadway and now for the national tour. "From my drum throne, I'm watching the different decisions and choices actors make in the same role."
The musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" unfolds at a concert performed by a "genderqueer" East German rock singer and refugee fleeing communism as well as a botched sex-change operation. She's trapped — born as a man, yet not fully a woman — and she's further wounded by unfinished business with her ex, Tommy Gnosis, a singer who stole her songs and became famous.
Hedwig, the character written and created by John Cameron Mitchell with composer Stephen Trask, might have spent years as "an internationally ignored song stylist," but she remains a diva always willing to steal a spotlight. The musical plays Tuesday through Christmas Eve in Salt Lake City, probably the oddest Christmas week programming imaginable at downtown's Eccles Theater, the city's new star-lit roadhouse.
"Sub-ver-sive," Mitchell sings when told the theater seats 2,500 people. He adds: "It's a weird show to be on a national tour. It's not exactly 'Rent,' or even 'American Idiot.' It's a strange kind of downtown New York trashy, drag-inspired performance piece."
A performance piece, that is, that Meryl Streep once called " 'Hamlet' in heels." "But Hamlet doesn't have to sing," Mitchell quips. And while Hedwig might be outrageous, the show's language might seem tame in comparison to "The Book of Mormon" musical.
"Our show is like 'Sound of Music' compared to that show," Mitchell says.
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Subverting just about everything • The musical has always sounded ahead of — or maybe behind — its times, as it draws upon the glam rock attitude of the 1970s, the era when Mitchell and Trask and their character grew up. Hed-heads, the label claimed by obsessive fans, have embraced the show's themes about gender openness and searching for the missing pieces of yourself.
Unusual for a rock musical, the story draws from such heady inspiration as "Plato's Symposium." "In "Origin of Love," Hedwig sings of Thor, a god who threw lightning bolts at prehistoric man, splitting humans in half and forcing them into an eternal search for their other half. One of the attractions of the show is that it asks the audience to become a part of the story, to feel a solidarity with Hedwig's freakishness.
"I think part of the relevance of 'Hedwig' now is that a lot of the stuff we were bringing together — the issues, the big thoughts, the philosophy, the politics, combined with the aesthetics of the show — made it a little bit fringe when we did it the first time," Trask says.
He, she, they: No pronoun exactly summarizes character of Hedwig, which is by design. "We" is the only appropriate descriptor of Hedwig's duality, Mitchell says.
Hedwig developed into a larger-than-life persona in the years since she first pranced around in heels to belt songs at New York gay nightclubs in the late 1990s. Then in 1998, Mitchell's character unleashed the whole story, first in an off-Broadway musical that was a surprising hit, then the cult-favorite 2001 Sundance Film Festival movie in which Mitchell directed his performance (improved, he says, by the experimentation prompted at Sundance screenwriting and directing labs).
And, of course, the movie sparked hundreds of local productions across the country, including three sold-out Plan-B Theatre Company runs in Salt Lake City starring Aaron Swenson.
Finally in 2014, Hedwig was again belting "Wig in a Box" for another unlikely turn: her first mincing, prancing and preening Tony-winning strut on Broadway, with star turns by Neil Patrick Harris, Andrew Rannells and Michael C. Hall. Then 17 years on, Mitchell stepped back into her heels and earned himself a special Tony.
"I learned more about myself doing it at an advanced age. I felt like I was reborn as an actor," says Mitchell, a Broadway veteran who hadn't acted for more than a decade. "It was fun to realize Hedwig could be done at any age. In fact, I'm looking forward to doing it in 20 years when I'm 70-something."
The tour's new Hedwig is Euan Morton, a Scottish actor who received a Tony nomination for his 2003 portrayal of Boy George in "Taboo." "He brings a heartbreaking anguish and arch humor and delicate beauty and the most amazing voice," says Trask, who has scored films such as "Dreamgirls" and "The Station Agent." "His Hedwig feels very queer and very European."
Hedwig's backup singer and co-dependent husband, Yitzhak, a Jewish drag queen from Croatia, helps the rock singer tell her story. On tour, Yitzhak is played by Hannah Corneau, "a real find," says Trask, who predicts the actor has the chops to be famous in two or three years.
Overseeing the tour, Mitchell and Trask are still involved in nurturing the show they call their baby. They have added topical references to the script, and also a few lines specifically for each city to explain why the failed singer is appearing at the venue.
And each actor who embodies the character has a chance to add a line or two to the story. " 'Hedwig' is definitely a collective consciousness of all the people who have done it," Mitchell says.
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Rebeling onstage • What's unique about the character's journey is that Hedwig becomes completely undone as theatergoers watch. Then in the third act, one note at a time, she puts herself back together again. "It's a very thorough emotional experience, and then there's the singing," Trask says.
Yanowitz, 49, who graduated from Skyline High School in 1985, relates to Hedwig's otherness when he remembers how it felt to grow up Jewish in suburban Salt Lake City. "I fell in love with music in Utah where I felt so different and in need of a community," he recalls, grateful for his parents for starting him on drums at age 7 as an outlet for his energy.
As a teenager, Yanowitz discovered his passion for performing. Before his senior year, Skyline officials announced they were eliminating men from the squad, which prompted him to try out in a protest. Once he was elected head cheerleader, he realized the position felt similar to playing in a band — "you're up onstage trying to rally people's energy," he says.
He studied English at Boston's Tufts University, then went on to a successful career as a rock drummer in The Wallflowers, and then playing and recording with a range of musicians, including Natalie Merchant, Billy Bragg and Wilco.
About 10 years ago, he met Trask at a theater writing workshop, and the pair became writing partners. Their musical, "This Ain't No Disco!," a completely sung-through opera set during the 1970s at Studio 54, is set to be produced off-Broadway next season.
Trask praises the show's onstage band, all of whom played for the Broadway show, and in an unusual move, also agreed to the tour. "You won't hear a better band in a live setting for the next four years," he says, adding that Yanowitz has "that thing that not many drummers have, he has feel."
As for Yanowitz, playing the drums serves as a metaphor for the heart embedded in the musical. "It just has this thing," he says of "Hedwig." "It has something about it that gets under people's skin, this idea of liberation in setting yourself and the people you love free."
facebook.com/ellen.weist —
Putting the wig back on
The national tour of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" plays Salt Lake City.
Where • Eccles Theater, 131 S. Main St., Salt Lake City
When • Tuesday-Thursday, Dec. 20-22, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Dec. 23, 8 p.m.
Tickets • $25, not including fees; broadway-at-the-eccles.com