Pride Guide 2001
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE C-11
UC music grad inches to fame
in this tale of fulfillment
by Anthony Glassman
Cincinnati "Prepare for the concert of the century a concert unlike any other you have ever seen.
You've seen that teaser before, haven't you? It's generally used any time a rock star over the age of 45 stages a comeback. With Hedwig and the Angry Inch, however, it's a little more apt.
This concert is based on an essay in Plato's Symposium, in which Plato posits that people's hearts were originally complete unto themselves. The gods, fearing the awesome power of the complete human heart, split people in two, leaving each half to seek its other half throughout its life.
Hedwig is searching for her other half. She was born a boy, Hansel Schmidt, in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Eager to get out from behind the Iron Curtain, Hansel fell in love with an American soldier and underwent gender-reassignment surgery so they could marry and move to the United
States. The sur-
gery went hor-
ribly awry.
Instead of getting female genitalia, Hedwig ends up with a one-inch penis.
She moved with her soldier boy to Kansas,
where he aban-
doned her in a
trailer park. She Todd Almond
then fell in love
with a young
man named Tommy with whom she wrote a number of songs. When Tommy took those songs and went on to become an international star, Hedwig started her own band, the Angry Inch. Now she plays wherever she can get a gig-coffee shops, steakhouses, anywhere there's a microphone.
This isn't a rock concert; it's a play. Hedwig and the Angry Inch, written by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, opened offBroadway in 1998 to rave reviews and incredible audience support. It's being released as a movie in August, but you can see it live during its June 6-23 run at the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati.
Starring in the role of Hedwig is Todd Almond, a 1999 graduate of the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music. He has since moved to New York City, where he co-writes plays and music, and acts up a storm. A chance to be in one of only five productions of the show outside of New York was more than enough to bring him back to Ohio.
"It's over the top, big, loud," Almond said of the role. An actor's dream, in fact.
However, when he got into reading the script, he realized there was depth to a character that could have been a caricature.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, this is a huge acting challenge," " Almond said.
The play is set up as a rock concert: the audience comes out, the band is on stage, the band sings. An outside influence (one on which Almond would not elaborate) keeps interrupting the show. With each distraction, Hedwig tells the audience a little more about her life, giving glimpses here and there to indicate what drew her to this theater, which she views as her big break.
"Love is our search for our missing half,"
Family Practice Adults & Children
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Glasses and Contact Lenses
Almond said, expanding on the Platonic theme of the play. “It's also a metaphor for Berlin before the wall came down, and for Hansel."
The theme of searching for something to complete the self is a familiar one for Almond, as it is for most people. Hailing from a small town in Nebraska, sheer luck led him to Cincinnati and the conservatory.
SANDY UNDERWOOD
Todd Almond
as Hedwig
"I had a teacher in high school who had a friend who went there," he said. “She knew I wanted to study music and maybe acting, so we flew out to Cincinnati and looked at the school."
The deciding factor for Almond, however, was that the school was in a big city. It was very far from his small-town home, commonly known as "hell" to young gay men looking to express themselves.
Of course, Almond as Hedwig is not an island. Every rock star needs a band, and this band is killer.
For the production, Ensemble brought in Philip Solomon, formerly of the Anti-Heros and the glam band Impotent Sea Snakes, as musical director. He put together a band reminiscent of the Afghan Whigs, whose popularity as an alternative band peaked in the early to mid 1990s.
Solomon also plays drums, supporting Billy Alletzhauser of the Ass Ponys on guitar. Former Whig John Curley is the sound engineer; Michael Horrigan, another former Whig now with Len's Lounge, plays bass; local boy Andrew Smithson is on keyboards; and Sam Womelsdorf, of Culture Queer, plays guitar. In terms of alternative rock, it's about as major a lineup as you can get outside the Top 10.
Gina Arnold, reviewer for New York's Metro Active, said, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a true rock opera; that is, it is an opera that is about rock. In the end, [it] is a wonderful treatise on the dreams that rock ignites in us all-and the way those dreams have of backfiring, big time."
So, you have two choices: Wait until the Sundance Award-winning movie comes out in August and see it in an impersonal theater, unable to interact with the people on the screen; or go to Ensemble and see the real event.
Ensemble Theatre will have 8 p.m. performances on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 9 p.m. performances on Fridays and Saturdays, from June 6 to 23. Ensemble is located at 1127 Vine St., Cincinnati; 513-421-3555 or www.cincyetc.com.
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