The fall of the Berlin Wall and Google shuttle-buses don't often find themselves in shared contexts, but Hedwig and the Angry Inch has become a pliant vehicle ready to swerve its way into whatever the contemporary circumstances of its latest production. Because the recent New York staging, and its touring equivalent now in San Francisco, is playfully unabashed about these chronological incongruities, we can enjoy the references to "the newly annoying Mission District" while still being bowled over by this musical that had its first performances in the 1990s.
The musical may even feel more in touch with the times, as morphing gender identities are now regularly explored on front pages of mainstream newspapers. But it's not an issue-oriented story being offered in the musical, rather a richly entertaining exploration of one person's painful journey through personas both thrust upon and then defiantly embraced by the title character.
John Cameron Mitchell, who wrote the musical with Stephen Trask, was the first Hedwig when the musical had its debut off-Broadway in 1998, and he would return to the role as one of a succession of Hedwigs who replaced Neil Patrick Harris during the recent hit Broadway production. San Francisco native Darren Criss was another performer to earn high praise during his Broadway run as the cross-dressing rocker on a bedraggled concert tour of self-flagellation, caustic revelations, and songs that both steamroll through the auditorium and pull an audience into a haunting ballad.
Hedwig, with the young dynamo Criss as its star at the Golden Gate Theatre, is launching a national tour in which he will recreate his role only during its San Francisco and Los Angeles runs. The same is true of Lena Hall, another SF native, who won a Tony Award in the role of Hedwig's woebegone husband, assistant, and thwarted performer. The two didn't get to perform together in New York, but it's an electric combination that makes the current show an even more special event.
Whatever actual theater where Hedwig takes place also becomes the venue for Hedwig's tour with her band dubbed the Angry Inch. In New York, it was the Belasco Theatre, with references to its recent flops, and now both in reality and in story, we are at the Golden Gate as Hedwig reminds us of such less successful previous tenants as Lestat and The Mambo Kings. The most recent occupant, Hedwig tells us, was The Hurt Locker �" The Musical, which closed after its first act. Management has been so kind as to allow Hedwig and company to perform on the set of war-ravaged detritus for a one-night-only concert.
When a door against the back wall of the stage is occasionally opened, sounds of a stadium concert by Hedwig protege-turned-backstabber Tommy Gnosis come pouring in to mock yet another bad choice made by Hedwig. He grew up as "a slip of a girly man" in East Berlin. A U.S. soldier offered marriage and escape if Hansel had gender reassignment surgery, a botched affair leaving Hedwig with "an angry inch," and then he was abandoned by the soldier in a trailer park in Kansas. Hedwig mentors a geeky local boy, writing songs for the aspiring singer, only for Tommy to reach fame while leaving Hedwig with footnote notoriety.
Criss is too boyishly young to easily suggest a well-worn Hedwig, but his fearsome commitment to the role makes that increasingly irrelevant. In a series of outlandish wigs suggesting the different stages of Hedwig's wobbly career, the diminutive Criss creates a character writ large as he belts, croons, struts, dances, and leaps about the stage. The humor both sardonic and of rim-shot variety flows easily, and he has the voice to convincingly sell all the various flavors of the Mitchell-Trask score.
As Yitzhak, forlorn factotum to Hedwig, Hall carries her psychological weight on stooped shoulders and a skittishly retiring presence. We can hear only teases of songs from her before Hedwig shuts her up, and her blossoming by the musical's end comes with stand-tall exhilaration both physical and vocal. Hall will be spelling Criss in the Hedwig role at the Oct. 19 and 26 evening performances, and promises to be worth a return visit.
Director Michael Mayer has had a successful history directing rock-flavored musicals with Spring Awakening and American Idiot, and his instincts serve both the Hedwig story and its songs. From time to time, San Francisco is blessed with post-Broadway productions that not many else will get to see, at least not with a cast that not only was a smash in New York but who also have a specific passion to play in our fair city. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is one of those rarities.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch will run at the Golden Gate Theatre through Oct. 20. Tickets are $45-$212. Call (888) 746-1799 or go to shnsf.com.