Hedwig and a disgruntled audience

WALRUS ART and Music Group is truly a new kid on the block and unfortunately that means they are prone to mistakes. The first of these was having its ushers, clad in glam rock attire, attempting to stamp hands with toxic ink that’s made for paper not for skin.
The second mistake was the environment in which they chose to stage John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, turning a former cinema that’s now a TV studio into a makeshift bar, albeit one with a very short drink list, and inviting the audience to walk around during the show.
It might even have worked had the former off-Broadway play, cult film and the biggest winner at the Tony Awards last week been more familiar to Thai audiences. As it was, most of the crowd at last Thursday’s show ended up standing for the best part of two hours with the more senior members complaining about the stiffness in their legs.
The cocktail tables in this make-believe bar were so temporary that they couldn’t even hold beer bottles. “Hedwig” is a play, not a concert and that’s why both the original off-Broadway and the current multi-Tony-award winning Broadway revival productions were staged in proper theatres.
As Walrus promised “a unique new experience in theatre-going”, I suggest it studies any work by British theatre company Punchdrunk before using this blurb again.
Another problem was that “Hedwig” spoke and sang in English and the Thai surtitles were projected so small and so high up that she had a real problem communicating with the audience. In addition, the two performers with spoken dialogue attempted to emulate an Eastern European accent with the result that I missed about 40 per cent of each line. The idea of staging this musical in English was “to keep the optimum message of the original play” but it was quickly apparent that for many Thai audience members the message was kept exclusively on the stage and not delivered to us.
Given Bangkok’s status as the gay capital of Asia, I wonder if this play would be more relevant not to mention entertaining were it delivered in Thai – as far as I could read, the Thai surtitles were well translated – with just the songs in English. After all, about two thirds of the play is composed of Hedwig’s monologues, not songs.
Chanudom Suksatit, whose talent as the East German transgender turned BU Theatre Company’s production into a success, returned to the title role and despite his discomfort with spoken English, was well cast in the part. Chanudom’s prowess was bad news for movie superstar Ratchawin Wongwiriya, though. As Hedwig’s husband Yitzhak, she nailed the character and it was clear that many failed to recognise her at first. However, her presence faded once Hedwig got into his monologue and as soon as Ratchawin started singing it became obvious that she shouldn’t ditch her acting career in favour of music.
And while the four musicians – also in glam rock gear – were riveting in all the songs, they were not trained stage actors and unable to dramatically support Hedwig and Yitzhak.
After the play, Dudesweet hosted an after-party event and I cut short my evening before it even started to ensure that Walrus’s “Hedwig” didn’t tamper with my fond memory of the original off-Broadway production.
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PARTIES
 n “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” runs from tonight until Saturday and from June 26 to 28 at Mongkol RCA Studio in RCA Plaza (one floor down from House cinema). Shows are at 8pm. It’s in English with Thai surtitles.
n Tickets are Bt1,000 (Bt850 for students) at www.BananaBooking.com. Price includes the after-party by Dudesweet, Trasher Bangkok and other DJs. For more details, check out Facebook.com/HedwigThai or call (087) 808 9989.