On October 9th, 2016, history was made on the North American tour of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Darren Criss stepped out of his golden lacquered platform heels and made way for a new Hedwig to take his place for the night. That person that stepped in for him was none other than the official understudy for the first two stops of the tour, Tony Award-winner Lena Hall.
The show is about the life of a transgender rock star who left her home in Berlin just before the Berlin Wall fell and found her way in the US, only to find that her pain has turned her into a person she doesn’t like or recognize, and that her gender is far more complicated than that of woman or man.
Regarding experience, Lena Hall was more than fit for the part. In 2014, she won the Tony Award for the role of Yitzhak (the second most primary role of Hedwig and the Angry Inch) for the famed Broadway Revival, which closed in 2015 after running 76 weeks and playing over 500 performances. She has countless fans to answer personally for her levels of explosive talent, and if you can’t trust their opinion, you can see her perform here and judge for yourself.
Audra Whitton, a longtime fan of the show and of Hall who attended her first performance as Hedwig on the 9th, has nothing but glowing words for her performance in the title role. “Her love for the character was obvious in every aspect of her performance,” Whitton said. “She managed to capture the playfulness as well as the raw pain of Hedwig - and occasionally both at once.”
While Lena is not the first to perform both Yitzhak and Hedwig in the show, she is the first to do so in as big a name production as the National Tour, even if only for a handful of performances. Her appearance as Hedwig in the tour also opens a door for people everywhere. While Hedwig traditionally messes with the social performance of gender by making a man play Hedwig and a woman play Yitzhak, (Hedwig’s husband), the creators of the show, Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell, have said over and over again that they are open to casting anyone of any gender in any role in the show. It is only until now that they have begun to put their money where their mouth is. It’s worthy to note that just as soon as the fans of Hedwig have become used to a certain type of person playing Hedwig (a cisgender male), the creators have switched the fans’ expectations by casting Hall to play Hedwig.
Lena Hall in the role of Hedwig proves that the character’s gender is more than can be defined by which parts she may or may not have, and that she can be played by anyone with the talent and drive to take on the role. Lena Hall stepping into the role proves that the production is moving on in a less limited direction as far as casting goes, and that if you can impress the creators of the show covered in glitter and wearing a killer pair of platforms, you too could have the chance to play Hedwig regardless of your identity.
