Hedwig and the Angry Inch by text by John Cameron Mitchell, music and lyrics by Stephen T (2003) Paperback

by John Cameron Mitchell

On Valentine's day, 1998, Hedwig and the Angry Inch opened to rave reviews and the phenomenon that is Hedwig was born. This long-running off-Broadway smash, with its central metaphor inspired by Plato's Symposium, tells the story of "internationally ignored song stylist" Hedwig Schmidt, a "fourth wall-smashing, German rock & roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a gruesomely botched sex-change operation" (Time Out). This story, performed by Hedwig (ne Hansel) in the form of a rock gig, and backed by the hard-rocking band, "The Angry Inch," begins in the former East Berlin when Hansel meets Luther, an American GI who promises to take the young man back to the States on the condition that he change his sex and become Hedwig. She ends up alone in a trailer part in Kansas where she meets geeky Tommy Speck, whom she renames Tommy Gnosis. He goes on to rock star fame and fortune and Hedwig is again cast aside.

Genres: Plays, Drama, LGBT, Fiction, Theatre, Queer, Gay

Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

John Cameron Mitchell is a Golden Globe-nominated American writer, actor, and director. He is best known for his motion pictures Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus. He is currently in production for Rabbit Hole starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.

Reviews

[Circe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hedwig is my absolute favourite musical of all-time, surpassing even the likes of Rocky Horror, so it was inevitable I'd be enamoured with this book. I take it out whenever I can to once again delve into the glamorous, tragic, and heartbreakingly poignant world of Hedwig - punk rock star of stage and screen.

EDIT 5/31/17: Rereading after seeing Hedwig live at the Boston Schubert theatre. Pure magic. I was singing the whole way home. Midnight Radio being performed before you on stage while you lift your hands with the audience in celebration of the misfits you are will bring you to tears. Beautiful.

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those rare theatrical gems that comes across on the page with almost as much fire and heart as the production did. John Cameron Mitchell was best known for playing the boy hero in musicals like "Big River" and "The Secret Garden" when along with writing partner Stephen Trask he penned the story of a young man named Hansel searching for love and identity after he goes through a botched sex change to escape communist East Berlin as the wife of an American solider. Left with only an "angry inch" and going by the name "Hedwig" our hero/heroine falls in love with Tommy the son of born again Christians and together they write music of such heartbreaking beauty and thrashing anger its sure to take them straight to the top. Until Tommy, cracking under the strain of his love for Hedwig conflicting with his own deep seated self hatred and inability to acknowledge his own sexual identity, deserts her taking their songs with him. Reborn as Tommy Gnosis he becomes the greatest rockstar the world has ever known and Hedwig is left chasing him on his world tour with her own ragtag band playing in seedy clubs and restaurants down the street from Tommy's sold out stadium shows.

This is one of those things that just has to be experienced to be understood so I'd recommend getting your hands on the soundtrack so you can really hear it while you read. But I'll share my favorite lyric from the show's epic love ballad "The Origin of Love" a song that's long been my favorite just to give you a taste. Based on a story in Plato's "Symposium" it posits the idea that once there were three sexes made of two people joined together; men with men, women with women, and men with women. When we became too powerful and defiant the gods split us down the middle separating us from our other halves and dooming us to forever search for the missing piece of ourselves;

"Last time I saw you
We had just split in two
You were looking at me
I was looking at you
You had a way so familiar
But I could not recognize
Cause you had blood on your face
I had blood in my eyes
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine
That's the pain
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart
We called it love"

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was 2002 or 2003 the first time I watched the Hedwig and the Angry Inch movie. I was a senior in high school, reeling and lost in the midst of not great home things. My school was small - 300 kids, give or take - and I seldom felt like I fit in. I felt uncomfortable with myself, like I was just a little stranger than my classmates, like my head was just a little higher up in the clouds. I wasn't even picked on. I was just...invisible. I think where I was at in life when I first saw the movie had a lot to do with my feelings for it at the time.

Hedwig was the most out there thing my little smalltown brain had seen up until that point, and I was floored. Did I understand everything that was happening? No. Was I still obsessed? Yes. It felt like my kind of weird (and I'm not even the represented audience in this, so I can only imagine how it felt for those who could actually identify with Hedwig 💗). I played "The Origin of Love" (downloaded illegally, no doubt) so many times that I can still sing it word for word 20+ years later (and sing I did when it came up in this book!). I've sadly never seen the live show/play. And I'd never read the play/text until now. I could hardly remember the plot of the movie but wanted to read this before rewatching it.

SO. WORTH. IT. TO. READ.

This is hilarious and smart. Hedwig is so sassy and funny.

You like the pelt? Some bitch stopped me on the way in, (American accent) "What poor, unfortunate creature had to die for you to wear that?"

"My Aunt Trudi," I replied.

But her humor is a bit of a smokescreen for the much less humorous story of her life. She has been through hell and is strong and vulnerable as a result. I don't want to give anything big away but a botched sex surgery and several desertions and betrayals occur.

I'M JUST ANOTHER JOHN YOU'VE GYPPED,
ANOTHER SUCKER STIFFED,
A WALK ON ROLE IN THE SCRIPT
TO YOUR LONG, LONG GRIFT.
THE LOVE THAT HAD ME IN YOUR GRIP
WAS JUST A LONG, LONG GRIFT.

I love the exploration of identity, the idea that we hide ourselves or disguise ourselves or change ourselves in order to please others. But I also love this idea of love, that we were severed by a lightning bolt long ago and that we have another half wandering out there, ready to make us whole when we find them.

LAST TIME I SAW YOU
WE HAD JUST SPLIT IN TWO.
YOU WERE LOOKING AT ME.
I WAS LOOKING AT YOU.
YOU HAD A WAY SO FAMILIAR,
BUT I COULD NOT RECOGNIZE,
'CAUSE YOU HAD BLOOD ON YOUR FACE;
I HAD BLOOD IN MY EYES.
BUT I COULD SWEAR BY YOUR EXPRESSION
THAT THE PAIN DOWN IN YOUR SOUL
WAS THE SAME AS THE ONE DOWN IN MINE.

(Seriously...some of the most gorgeous lyrics ever)

It's worth it to read all the way to the end to read Aristophanes' Speech from Plato's Symposium. Much of the lyrics to "The Origin of Love" are pulled from this.

I was leaning towards 4 stars but can't stop thinking about this, so -
5 Stars

[Brigitta · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first saw the film Hedwig & the Angry Inch, I jokingly wrote to a friend that I wish I had thought of all this hilarity, and then I left it at that. Some time later I spent a month away from home and somehow ended up playing the cast recording with NPH on a loop wherever I was going and mentally giving the finger to everything I was unhappy with in my very own wicked little town. But aren’t we all, honey? So I have spent basically the entirety of this year so far with Ms Hedwig, channelling my own anger and cursing out all the Tommys of the world, and I’m happy to announce that now I can watch the “Midnight Radio” scene in the film without crying, so that’s progress, I guess.

But I digress. In any case, it was high time I read the play as well, as much as there is one play. I read the 2014 edition, which is revised for the Belasco Theatre, but then again, the foreword also notes that it should be regarded as the transcript of one night of the current run, which makes it extra pleasurable, and I totally understand why people go back to see it several times, with different Hedwigs. I practically know most of the text by heart by now, but the new jokes made me weep with joy – or as the queen herself would put it, I laugh, because I will cry if I don’t. Of course, the book of a musical can hardly compare to “the real thing” (especially when “the real thing” has such deities in it as John Cameron Mitchell/NPH/Darren Criss, ugh, stop it, gents, stop it, and also because they are ad-libbing liberally), but it’s still a lot of fun.

For a bit I thought Hedwig was a Marmite kind of show, but then again, it’s probably not, and I’m not just talking about the universal nature of the stories serving as inspiration, from Plato’s Symposium and the Gospel of Thomas (excepts are included in the new edition, well done), but also the bottom line of the story, being “This is not necessarily who I wanted to be, but alas, this is what I have to work with now.” I, for one, can certainly sympathize with this and thus Hedwig has also gained a prime spot on my “this is what I am (now)” list. In any case, I certainly urge you to see the movie, at least, and laugh, and cry, and – what is probably the most important – rock out.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just seen this live onstage this weekend (a genuine cabaret-style experience at the Alley Theater in Louisville) several years after seeing the film version -- which to me is the best movie musical to have been made in the past decade -- I was anxious to read the text and lyrics. What's remarkable to me about it, apart from how funny it is, is how effectively Mitchell and Trask capture the essence of a life in so few words.

I'm no expert in the vagaries of queer and transgender studies, so I'm not looking at the piece from that angle. Ultimately this is a show that speaks to a lot of different audiences, but specifically, to any one of us who are just trying to find love and happiness -- the search for our "other half," or lost half.

Also, the show rocks.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly engaging play about life's injustices and the drive to strive forward in the face of devastating failure. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is brilliantly written but extremely vulgar. It centers around a transgender individual whose botched sex-change leaves them without genitalia and mutilated. Things go from bad to worse as Hedwig is brutally betrayed for millions of dollars and a career in music. Despite the horrific themes and circumstances of the play, Hedwig and the Angry Inch manages to humour and charm so effectively that viewers and readers can easily forget how tragic Hedwig's journey truly is.

A powerful play about justice, gender, nation, history, identity, and forgiveness.

[Freya]

Plato's Symposium strikes me again

[Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I was lgtbq I think this would hit harder. Although it has a deep meaning about finding the self. Probably really good but it didn’t hit hard 7.5/10

[Michelle Cheuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

writing my english essay on this 💪🏼

[Juliaap2010 · Rating 3 out of 5]

To preface, I had to read the script of this musical for a first year English lit lecture, so I was really analyzing the crap out of it and found it painful to read. It was really strange trying to analyze the songs like poems, and it became very confusing overall.

We ended up watching the movie version of this in class, and after watching that, I loved it way more than I did when just reading the script. I really feel like this piece needs to be seen in whole to understand the smaller details. Also through just reading the script the story is a little convoluted and it gets hard to understand the little details, which became more apparent in the film.

Overall, I would definitely recommend watching a version of this before reading the script because I feel like you’ll just have a much better experience :)

[Cristofer · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE BEST MUSICAL EVER !!!! Rent the movie, to see the word for word performance by the w. (I had the honor of playing the part myself. What an amazing experince !) riter, and genius, John Cameron Mitchell ! The music here furthers the story, but no corny duets, or tal singing. Live rock band on stage (great soundtrack to add to your colection, true rock aa Rolling Stones/Patti Smith /White Album era Beatles)an" Good audition material her. It is a one "man " show. The full 990 minute piece is al taed nd sung by the main character. A kid who grew up a gay by, realized he was a woman trapped in a mans body, onlly to have the undergrund german surgeon botch his sex change, leaving him eith a non descrippt "stump" of sorts, and no sex officialy.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this a completely blank slate, so I had no real expectations for what I'd find. I assumed it would be crass, but rather it turned out to be a very moving exploration about gender duality, artistic integrity and American culture. I like reading lyrics without the music because it lets me ruminate a bit more over that, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the numbers when I see the play/ watch the film.

[Ken French · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the play in its original production at the Jane Street Theatre and finally got around to watching the movie version recently. A real favorite of mine ever since I heard Mitchell play the original demo of "Wig in a Box" on Vin Scelsa's radio show.

[Szidonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book! It ha great songs and a great story line. I also like the references the writer made to other works. Great quick read!!

[Jene · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's Hedwig, so it gets 5 stars.

[Anis A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never imagined reading the text would break my heart more. Beautiful.

[Cee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think there is more to this what what I am able to take away, but I don't care enough to try diving deep. I really only picked it up for a challenge prompt.

[Sean Meriwether · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to my ex-boyfriend, who worked at the Jane Street Theatre box-office, I became an early "wighead" and saw the show multiple times with different actors, including John Cameron Mitchell. The world is small and strange and I had no idea that the handsome and aloof man who lived downstairs from me in the West Village was not just Hedwig, but the boy I had crushed on in Larry Kramer's The Destiny of Me . The pieces would not fall into place until I bumped into him at a wedding and the light bulb went off. I went on to see the movie version, which is good but doesn't hold up to the live version for a variety of reasons (primarily because Hedwig does not transform into her protege, Johnny Gnosis), but loved the Broadway debut with Neil Patrick Harris. In other words, I was a fan, but I had never read the text, though I was so familiar with it that I could hear Mitchell's voice in my head, including Stephen Trask's score.

The story of a German girlie-boy who must give up a little piece of himself to find a new life in America crosses genders, borders, and is also a tour de force of alternative musical styles. I was always curious Hedwig was inspired by Jayne County, the transgender singer and performer. County did inspire David Bowie early in his career, but Hedwig's character appears to have evolved in the club scene in New York over time. What works best for this story is that it is such a unique journey, yet at its core is a universal truths of love and acceptance, not just of others, but of yourself. A gorgeous script and a loving tribute to alternative icons.

[Michelle Arostegui · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was Crazy. Hedwig is a German transgender male-to-female punk rocker, who tours with her band in the USA. I read the script of the Musical. Hedwig fell in love with an American serviceman and had gender reassignment surgery so that she could marry him and go back to the US with him. She follows the route through the US of rock star, Tommy Gnosis, who loved Hedwig at one time, and then stole all her songs and left her.
2020 Read Harder Challenge: A Play by an author of color and/or queer author

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw a production of this play at The Greenhouse Cabaret in Bend, Oregon. It had long been on my list of shows to see, and it’s definitely a top favorite. The way the Berlin Wall was used as an allegory for the trans/queer experience was brilliant. I love how identity was explored, and I loved the revelations and how this show made me think deeply about gender and love. A stunning book that left me speechless. I plan on seeing this show every chance I get.

[Robin]

Seeing John Cameron Mitchell live in concert was one of the last pre-COVID events I partook in. The songs remain stellar over twenty years since their premiere. The film seems to gel better than the stage production, as scene transitions as scripted can feel abrupt. No matter what, this show is a comfort.

[Sandra Kimmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad story of a young man forced to undergo a sex change in order to escape East Berlin and marry an American GI. The botched surgery leaves her with an "angry inch," which overwhelms and overtakes her sad life. I saw the musical several years ago, which helps when reading the song lyrics to have some of the music in my head. Now excuse me while I go listen again...

[Alison✌️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think this is the first time i just sat down and read all the way through it and whoa! my brain hurt. obviously a favourite, obviously can’t get john cameron mitchell’s voice out of my head while i read it but that is a very good problem to have.

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it would’ve been a 3 or 3.5 if it didn’t have such good quotes. Origin of love had NICE lyrics. But also I don’t yet know what any of the songs are supposed to sound like sung with music so take this rating w a grain of salt, it’s purely based off the text.

[Alessandra Porumbel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through Hedwig, Mitchell describes a journey that we all go on in which we attempt to discover ourselves in the midst of the countless labels put upon us by the world. Not to mention, the mix between the incredibly catchy and well written songs with the comedic monologues bring me to LIFE :p

[k8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for our costume design class. All i’m saying, im so sorry hedwig 😭

[Antarah Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck twin flames

[Santiago]

can’t wait to watch the movie :p

[Jonny Kelvey-Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

give me the film!

[Lily M ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5