Fuchs Questions

The World of the Play

What is space like? Hedwig and the Angry Inch takes place on the stage of a Broadway theater, the Belasco, on the former set of Hurt Locker: The Musical. The space is modified by lighting and projections over the course of the show.
What is time like? Time is linear, as the musical takes place over the course of Hedwig’s performance. However, the musical also uses a flashback structure as Hedwig re-enacts several moments from her life.
What is the climate like? The musical takes place entirely indoors, so it’s hard to say what the climate is like. I’d guess that the climate is like the inside of a theatre, dark and maybe air-conditioned.
What is the mood? What is the tone? The mood of the musical is at times angry and defiant, at others humorous, at others sad and melancholy. The rock and roll music gives the musical a passionate tone.
What is the pattern of sound? Hedwig and the Angry Inch, like most musicals, alternates between speaking and singing. The music takes a lot of inspiration from early 1970s glam rock, punk, and power ballads. Hedwig’s backing band consists of the typical rock instruments - drums, bass, electric guitar, and piano.

Is this a public world, or private? What are its class rules? The conceit of the play is that Hedwig is performing for the audience, so in that sense the world is public.
In what patterns do figures arrange themselves? Hedwig is the central figure of the play: Yitzhak and the band revolve around her. Hedwig and Yitzhak also interact frequently as a pair. Tommy Gnosis is depicted off-stage by himself.
How do figures appear? The characters are fairly exaggerated - this is a glam rock musical and they are performing for the audience. Hedwig isn’t a caricature, but her emotions are depicted in a larger-than-life way.
How do figures dress? Hedwig wears a wig and dresses in an androgynous, glam rock style, in keeping with her genderqueer identity. Later in the play she changes into a dress. Yitzhak wears masculine clothing, probably all black since he’s a roadie, until the end, at which point he changes into “stunning female drag.” The Angry Inch are dressed “flashily but affordably.” Tommy Gnosis has a silver cross painted on his forehead, and probably dresses like a rock star.
How do figures interact? Hedwig and Yitzhak take passive aggresive snipes at each other until they reconcile at the end. The Angry Inch mostly keep to the background.
Who has power on this planet? Hedwig exerts power over Yitzhak by forcing him not to perform drag as a condition of their green card marriage, because she feels threatened by his talent.
What are the language habits? Hedwig alternates between monologues to the audience and dialogues with herself in which she plays both parts. Hedwig’s language is definitely the language of feelings - defiance, lust, love, anger, despair, vulnerability, and self-acceptance.

What Changes?

Three images
- First image: Yitzhak sullenly introducing Hedwig as she parachutes onto the stage to sing “Tear Me Down”.
- Last image: Hedwig walking offstage into the light as Yitzhak (finally in drag) and the band sing the phrase “Lift up your hands…”
- Central image: Hedwig singing “Angry Inch”, a song about her botched sex change.
- Why was it essential to move through the central image to get from the first to the last? “Tear Me Down” introduces us to Hedwig as a divided character, compared to the Berlin Wall, somewhere in between “slavery and freedom, man and woman”. Hedwig’s botched sex change is the moment at which she loses her maleness and becomes a person somewhere in between male and female. The closing image shows us Hedwig emotionally healed and whole, having found her other half within herself. It was essential to move through the central image because it shows us the moment of Hedwig’s division.
What changes in the landscape? The lights and projections change frequently.
What changes in the action? Hedwig and the Angry Inch moves from defiance to self-acceptance.
What doesn’t change? The Angry Inch don’t really change at all - they seem to be there mostly to accompany Hedwig and Yitzhak.

What Does the World Demand of Me?

Hedwig and the Angry Inch asks the audience to empathize with Hedwig, to feel her emotions along with her.

Concept Sentences

Simple Sentence

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a musical about self-acceptance.

Complex Sentence

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a musical about searching for an other half and finding it within yourself.

Three to Five Sentence version of the story

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a musical about Hedwig, an East German genderqueer woman who writes and performs glam rock and punk music. Growing up in East Berlin, Hedwig becomes obsessed with the idea that everyone has an “other half” somewhere in the world that will complete them. When she falls in love with an American solider, Hedwig undergoes a botched sex change operation in order to marry him and move to America, only for him to leave her. After her operation, Hedwig sees herself as divided between male and female. After she moves to Junction City, New Jersey, Hedwig trains a young man named Tommy Speck to be a rock star, only for him to also leave her when he discovers her botched sex change, eventually using her songs to become a famous musician. As Hedwig tells her life story over the course of the musical, she lets go of her pain and anger, and comes to realize that she is more than a woman or a man, and that she does not need another person to complete her.