Last Sunday, in our area in particular, everyone seemed to exist in a hazy and glorious state of euphoria, too giddy and rapt to do much besides stare in awed disbelief at the magnificence just witnessed and every so often shake their heads in heady bliss or grin with wordless sighs. Yours truly and her best beloved were among those who were experiencing a happy state of altered consciousness, the remnants of which linger still in my memory and hit me like a warm lapping wave even now to be recalled. The only difference between our felicific delectation and that of everyone else around us was that the root cause of ours was a million miles away from sports, sports ads, Katy Perry, half time shows, and Super Bowls in general and the Patriots’ Super Bowl in particular, but instead lay nestled in NYC, where John Cameron Mitchell rocked the the party-light fringed skirt off the very theater we call Belasco and brought triumph and tears to our hearts as Hedwig, the punk rock star who captivates us with her hilarious and poignant quest to find her other half.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the original Hedwig is back. When it was announced that Mitchell would return to the role he created and first performed as so long ago, there was much peeing in excitement among hed-heads. And also crafting of tee shirts to don as gay apparel upon our visit to see him from our gloriously unobstructed roost in the first balcony row.
Because of the contemporary artists I can currently think of who bless us the gift of their creative imaginations, John Cameron Mitchell deserves a special glorious little ship of high praise and gratitude for birthing unto this world Hedwig Robinson nee Schmidt.
Oh dear Hedwig, how magnificently you have aged. Your voice is a little lower, your words a little more tinged with weariness, but merciful heavens if you don’t know how to captivate your audience with the fierceness you still carry as tall and proud as your wig in its velveteen box. And lest there was any doubt, yes, you can cut a bitch as well as anyone ever could, bless your fierce East German heart.
What is it about Hedwig, that sparkle blue eyeshadowed vixen, that so captures our hearts, our love, our fascination, never even mind considerable sums from our wallets? As I try and name that energy that consumes me each time I absorb her story, I can’t help but return to the coincidence of timing with the euphoric haze that surrounded New England last Sunday that Gina and I were sharing in parallel play with, but were not a part of. How to explain the depth of stirring in my soul that Hedwig brings about in us? We have tried to explain it to those close to us, and even convinced two brave souls to partake in our Broadway JCM extravaganza with us, but yet I struggle to put the miasma of love and passion that Hedwig injects into me into words. As a writer this was frustrating to me until I realized, as New England existed in a haze of superbowl afterglow, my own post-Hedwig aura was probably the closest thing to a pang of sympathy I will ever have for sports fans who get swept up in the magic of their sport’s team doing fantastically sporty things like winning a big game in sports. Because I was equally swept up by the magic of my favorite work of art being performed in a big arty venue by the very artist who conceived of it. Super Bowl and a Broadway play: they’re practically the same thing after all, right? Right. So here goes.
Superbowl Sunday is the world that we live in. And the world we live in is made for people who want Super Bowl Sundays. But Hedwig is not of that world. She calls, without shame or apology through its din to those of us who are also not of that world, or not fully of it. To those who stand in its shadows and fringes. Superbowl World would ignore us or drown us out without a hint of remorse. In calling to us, Hedwig gives us visibility voice, and importantly, validation.
In Superbowl world, categories and conformity are necessary. A place for everything and everything in its place. This helps maintain the power structure and normalcy which are needed if the Superbowl World is to stay Superbowl World. But Hedwig defies such demands. She exists beyond category and does not conform. She is both man and woman and yet she is also neither. And neither is she wholly transgendered or gay or straight or feminine or masculine. She is both a fierce and powerful punk rocker, and also the “internationally ignored song stylist barely standing before you today.” She is one half and she is one whole. She exists in a divide and as a divide. Both a bridge and a wall.
In Superbowl World, love is when the guy gets the girl in the end. But to Hedwig, love itself is another kind of divide: it is the yearning you feel to make yourself whole again while wondering if your other half ran off with the good stuff or if you did. The shadow of loss is inherent in her idea of love. In the play, “The Origin of Love”’s message can be read in two ways: One way reads that there is someone out there for everyone, but the other way to read is, our other half exist within us already.
Or as RuPaul so eloquently puts it:
When at the end of the play, Hedwig becomes Tommy Gnosis (her “other half” who ran off with the good stuff and made a platinum killing while Hedwig puts on concerts at the Sizzler salad bar to unimpressed audiences), the makeup gone, stripped literally bare (save an adorable pair of pleather briefs), I swear my throat swells to the size of a small orca and a briny curtain builds in precarious balance on my lower eyelids. it is a beautiful sequence of music and lyrics that build into an anthem of love and recognition for the magnificent rock star that exists inside the struggling (or internationally ignored) artist.
In Superbowl World, heroes are those who scrabbled their way up to some position of power. In Superbowl World, Tommy Gnosis is the hero. Hedwig is without the power or fame or recognition of Tommy Gnosis, but God love her, she refuses to relinquish or back down from being a hero and so demands we see her in the same way. And indeed she becomes the boot stomping, punk clothed, sparkle lipped and wig sporting hero of her own story. She will never hold power in the Superbowl World but she finds, in the end, that all the power she needs is within her grasp, within herself.
Hedwig presents herself as someone you think you might not have anything in common with, and by the end of the play you realize you have everything in common with her. All of us stand with one foot in Superbowl World and one foot outside of it. Some of us straddle one world more so than the other but all of us, in some small way, stand in the divide. Who among us is fully of Superbowl World all the time? None of us, and that is the power of the play. We are all forging through our lives and this world using “what we have to work with.” Hedwig speaks to the part of us that stands in the shadows, alone, lonely or powerless. The strange rock and rollers. And she shines a light on us to let us know we’re doing all right. Makes us whole once more.
Bonus Track for all you Hed-heads:
Sigh.
