Novices make their marks on ‘Hedwig’
Tony Award nominee Euan Morton auditioned for the lead of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” with no experience walking in heels. Paul McGill was hired as the tour’s assistant choreographer. As a dancer, Mr. McGill’s first Broadway role, as a teenager out of Bellevue, was in “La Cage Aux Folles.” In heels.
Together, they are making it work in the “Hedwig” tour that stops at the Benedum Center Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Scottish actor who played Boy George in Broadway’s “Taboo” and calls himself “a terrible dancer” won over the show’s creators, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, during his final callback.
“Somehow they stuck me in a pair of heels and put me with Paul McGill, who was wonderful and really patient, and after an hour of stumbling around like a fool, I was shoved into this room, and I pulled it off.”
He soldiered on even after a mishap halfway through the routine. “John Cameron Mitchell said, ‘Did you break a heel? That’s amazing.’ I kind of figured I’d get it after that,” Mr. Morton said.
It’s a show Pittsburghers may know from Anthony Rapp’s memorable turn in a City Theatre production in 2003, a year before Mr. McGill took a giant leap from Northgate High School and Pittsburgh Musical Theater for Broadway.
After a decade of dancing in shows from “A Chorus Line” to “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” and finally “Bullets Over Broadway,” Mr. McGill changed his focus from dancing to cre-ating. In 2015, he plotted the moves for “The Legend of George McBride,” about an Elvis impersonator turned drag queen, and tied for the off-Broadway Astaire Award as outstanding choreographer.
Still, the “Hedwig” call came out
of the blue, and he came aboard while Darren Criss and Tony winner Lena Hall were transferring the Broadway production to the West Coast, with Point Park University’s Mason Alexander Park as the Hedwig stand-in. Mr. Morton was announced as the tour’s lead in October.
Of course, Hedwig is more than just a performer in elaborate wigs and those pesky heels.
She started life as a boy named Hansel in East Berlin, fell for American soldier Luther and underwent sexual reassignment surgery in order to legally marry Luther and leave town with him. The operation went awry — thus, “the angry inch” — and Hedwig, “a slip of a girly boy” in her youth, has been left with mutilated genitals. After losing Luther to a man, she lives as a female, dreaming of rock stardom.
We meet Hedwig leading her band on a third-rate tour of the U.S., feuding with husband and bandmate Yitzhak. Her tour is following that of arena rocker Tommy Gnosis — once Hedwig’s boyfriend, he took off with songs they wrote together and became a marquee name.
“The thing about ‘Hedwig’ is, it’s in real time and real space, so Hedwig is actually playing the Benedum Center that night,” said Mr. McGill, explaining the musical’s concert atmosphere. “And Tommy Gnosis, he may be playing across the river at PNC Park. You are getting the Broadway production as a local experience.”
Mr. McGill described his time with “Hedwig” as his personal master class in choreography, learning the different actors’ processes and communicating the moves for the production. Of Mr. Morton, he said, “He’s a real actor. Where some people who have done the role ask, ‘What count do I move on?’ he’s asking, ‘What is Hedwig doing to get over here?’ So those questions really informed how the show was put together with Euan.”
After Mr. Morton played Boy George in the 2003 Broadway musical “Taboo,” he was told by many people that Hedwig would be a great role for him.
At the time, “I was resistant even to the idea because I felt it was a similar type of character and she came from a similar period and a similar aesthetic, until I read the script and realized it was such a deep and, especially today, meaningful piece,” said Mr. Morton.
The song most people readily associate with the show is “Wig in the Box,” about Hedwig’s transcendent experience putting on a wig. That’s where she and Mr. Morton differ.
“Yes, I get into character, but it’s not because of the transformation physically. It’s because of the transformation emotionally,” the actor said. “She represents all of us, so I am already halfway there. We have people who leave the theater who can’t deal with her, but I mostly feel sorry for them because, ultimately, it’s a universal story.”
A 2001 movie was made of “Hedwig” with Mr. Mitchell, who also originated the role onstage, and Neil Patrick Harris won a Tony Award in the Broadway revival that launched this tour. But not every show that plays well on the coasts gets the same reception as it moves throughout the U.S.
“We are going to Durham, N.C., San Antonio, Texas, Atlanta, Ga., places where I think it will be really exciting to bring this character — especially North Carolina. Hedwig won’t be able to go to the bathroom,” said Mr. Morton, who estimates he has driven thousands of miles of the United States while performing in regional theaters nationwide.
He has a plan for his first visit to Durham.
“I intend to come on at the beginning and say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’d better make this show quick because I haven’t been to the bathroom for four days.’”