Photo credit: Chloe Briskin
Last weekend, a production of the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch performed three shows in Alpha Delta Phi’s Grotto. If you’ve never heard of Hedwig, let’s just say that it is a sight to behold, and this version was no exception.
I live in Alpha Delt, so skipping this show was out of the question for me; I do my laundry down the hall from the Grotto, and I kept walking in on Hedwig rehearsals during the first two weeks of school. I also knew several of the people who worked on it, including the director (Maia Nelles-Sager ’17), the stage manager (Chloe Briskin ’18), and the bassist (our managing editor Maya). But I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew a Wesleyan alum, Stephen Trask ’89, had written the music and lyrics. I knew that the main character was genderqueer – traditionally performed by a cis man in women’s clothing, although in this version the actor was also genderqueer – and that the only other character onstage was a gay man played by a woman. And I knew there was a rock band. But that’s about it.
Vatzlav is a castaway slave in search of a new life and identity. After a tempest leaves him shipwrecked, he washes up on a remote island where he encounters a zany cast of characters including a blind Oedipus, a wealthy bloodsucking couple, and their son who pretends to be a bear while instigating a revolution. This panoramic political farce is a mash-up of 18th-century French philosophical tales like Voltaire’s “Candide” and the Marquis de Sade’s “Justine.” In 77 brisk episodic scenes, a bizarre and biting tale unfolds about the absurd mechanisms of power. Wesleyan alumna 
From 
Visiting Assistant Professor 
Perhaps you consider yourself a bit of a Peter Shaffer aficionado. Did you get down with Equus, and not just because of those crazy Daniel Radcliffe scenes on Broadway? Are you trying to scope some meticulously produced student-run theater?