Friday, October 25, 2013

Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig - sheer genius

I don't know who the writer in Flavorwire is talking about here:
There’s a lot of disagreement, at least in the online commenting world, on whether or not this is inspired casting.
Because anybody who knows anything about NPH or Hedwig realizes that this is a match made in heaven.

I saw the original Hedwig and the Angry Inch when it was at Jane Street, although I missed author John Cameron Mitchell's run in the title role. But it's thanks to an interview he gave to Terry Gross on Fresh Air that I decided to take myself and my then-boyfriend - who loved the show - to see it.

My daughter, who still resents me for not taking her to see the off-Broadway run, is ecstatic about the Broadway production with NPH and what I'm worried about is that it will be so huge we won't get tickets.

I did take her to see the movie version but it's not the same.

And I'm not complaining about the actor I saw who replaced Mitchell, Michael Cerveris, who is actually a more accomplished actor than Mitchell, and speaking of whom, is now in another show I want to see, Fun Home, based on the work of Alison Bechdel, of Bechdel Test fame.

I also think this is absurd:
...a hard-edged show like Hedwig doesn’t exactly have the family-friendly subject matter that the biggest hits on Broadway feature. (This year’s Tony winner for Best Musical was Kinky Boots, to be fair, but that drag queen-fused musical featured songs about accepting and loving yourself and others. Hedwig, on the other hand, features a song about a botched gender-reassignment surgery.) 
What? Does this writer know nothing? The time has surely come for Hedwig - and with NPH it's going to be huge.