Tower Grove Abbey has been turned into a cabaret-cum-dive-bar for Stray Dog Theatre's version of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch". That includes a little rearranging of the theater itself. Not the seats – the former pews are, shall we say, set in their ways. But the bar has been moved to just in front of the stage, and those sliding doors that separate the lobby from the house remain open from start to finish. That's the first clue that this is an out-of-the-ordinary evening.
Theater fans know that "Hedwig" is the story of an East German who had a botched gender reassignment surgery. One could get deeply into the questions of gender fluidity that are raised here, and I'm sure others have, but when those questions are brought up as lyrics to the glam-rock score, one tends to get caught up in the moment rather than ponder Aristophanes. Not that there's anything wrong with that – and that's not meant tongue in cheek. This is a show that wants the audience to be in the here and now, and Stray Dog Theatre's version emphasizes that. Guests are encouraged to come up to the bar anytime during the show, just as they would if they were really at the bar where Hedwig is performing that night. The opening night audience was a verbally participative crowd, adding to the atmosphere.
Hedwig is Michael Baird, who tears it up as the diva who tells us her story and sings, cabaret-style, Marlena Dietrich gone mad in a Kansas trailer park. It's a demanding role and Baird fills every Spandexed inch of it. Her husband, Yitzhak, originally a Zagreb drag queen, brings us Anna Skidis Vargas, whose singing pleases and whose appearance reminds one of Steven Van Zandt.
The Angry Inch – the name given to Hedwig's band as well as an anatomical reference – are front and center on stage and more than do justice to the score. It's M. Kuba, A.J. Lane, Bob McMahon and music director Chris Petersen bringing it, despite their goofy character names.
By nature, it's a raucous show, with lots of heavy rock and sexual humor, and it lived up to expectations, exceeding them in many ways. The frequently troublesome sound at the Abbey was almost perfect, allowing these lyrics, important to the full story line, to be heard. Rob Lippert's deceptively simple-looking set works perfectly with Tyler Duenow's imaginative lighting. Costume designer Eileen Engel and makeup and wig stylist Priscilla Case must have been salivating at the prospects here, and they're wonderfully, tawdrily fulfilled. My only question was why Hedwig was totally bare of jewelry.
Director Justin Been does it again. Go, just don't expect anything calm.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
through April 16, 2016
Stray Dog Theatre
Tower Grove Abbey
2336 Tennessee
314-865-1005