Firstly, no that blog post title is not just me doing a happy little countdown dance until my third, ahem, and likely what-will-be best, Hedwig on Broadway show. No no, I am cleverer than that my little Buns. No, indeed, that title means to say that yes, Saturday evening, I will have the pleasure of witnessing the ORIGINAL 2001 film and off-Broadway Ms. Hedwig herself, the delightful John Cameron Mitchell, back on the broadway stage.
Really, Buns, I can't even believe it. After having seen the original (and may I say, fucking fabulous), Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig earlier this year, followed up by Michael C. Hall as Hedwig last month, I feel I may now be topping both of those marvelous men with JCM. Side note -- do I sense a Hedwig theme here -- must each and every male to fill Hedwig's, er, wig, have a three part name? (Read: NPH, MCH, JCM. Yes I know I left out the widespread forgettable Andrew Rannalls somewhere in between there but since I am not a fan and made the purposeful choice to avoid his what-was-surely sub-par performance, I'm going to discount that dismissable factoid). But I digress.
So, yes! On Saturday evening, you'll know where to find me. Belasco Theater, first row, center. I'll be the girl with popping-out-of-her-head eyes, a perma-grin and an all around glow from hed (pun intended) to toe. I truly cannot wait. I feel like a flamboyant little girl in a sweet and sour candy shop ready to play! What a weird metaphor, what's that about right? I don't even know myself. But who cares. Suffice to say, my little heart is just full of excitement, wonder and eagerness at the thought of seeing the original Sugar Daddy lovin' Ms. Schmidt herself on stage before my eyes. That's the long story short, ya know.
Okay, in anticipation of this to-come epic evening, I'd like to take a minute, or a paragraph or two, to juxtapose my two Hedwigs seen to date. Let me commence with this likely polarizing statement: I did not like one of these Hedwigs better than the other. That's right.You read it right. I. Liked. Them. Both. The. Same. I'll pause for a moment and let you re-read. Ok, done? What, you must be thinking, you couldn't have liked MCH as much as NPH (they even rhyme I know). Why yes, actually I am certain those thoughts are going through your head right about now. But allow me to defend my statement. Or, rather, not defend, back up. Yes, kids, NPH was fabulously fucking fierce -- no way around it. He was the energetic, what-you-see-is-what-you-get, bubbly, lovely Ms. Hedwig. His performance (see previous in-depth B-logue review) was unlike any other I had seen, full of energy, enthusiasm, and at the core, awesomeness. Hence his Tony and stuff. Simple statement: I loved NPH-as-Hedwig.
Having said that, my love for NPH-as-Hedwig is totally and utterly unrelated to my love for MCH-as-Hedwig. No causation, no correlation, nope no relation at all. If NPH was the bright, bubbly Hedwig, sexy-Dexy MCH was her polar opposite. Michael C. Hall was Hedwig sans Prozac, Hedwig on the couch -- he was the darkly dreaming Hedwig. (If you have the unfortunate misfortune of being a non-Dexter fan, you will not get the reference. I'm sad for you if so). But yes, MCH brought all of his dark, death-dreaming, bathed-in-blood past with him to the stage... and threw it all right into the heels of Hedwig herself. MCH's Hedwig was equally (and quite honestly, perhaps even more so) alluring to me than/as that of NPH. Hall's Hedwig was darkly humorous, witty, and utterly mesmerizing. The layer of dark beneath the bubbly blonde wig brought incrementally more depth to the character, to me, than the alternate layer of light I saw in NPH's Hedwig, And that really worked for me. After all, the story of Hedwig is, despite the glitter, wigs and heels, not a light and fluffy one. It is a story of a botched, and unwanted, sex change operation, a story of parental neglect, marital dischord, the forfeiting of identity, and pure self-doubt. It is a story of self-love but only after the story of self-hate comes to a rather incomplete close. With a storyline like that and the weight of the east Berlin wall in tow, a darkly-dreaming-Dexter-meets-blonde-girly-boy-Hedwig was, to me, the perfect potion. Just to be clear now, no, I will still not say which Hedwig I preferred. Yet.
But ask me after Saturday night.
#jcm #hedwig #hedwigonbday #mch #nph #dexter #doogiehowster
#somuchlove
Love,
The Mysterious RBunny
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