On the second floor of historic Montreal strip club Café Cleopatra, is an aged cabaret dedicated to showcasing to a wide variety of locally produced shows, from burlesque to drag, to comedy to LGBTQ+ events and more. Produced by Noelle Hannibal’s In the Wings Productions, Hedwig and the Angry Inch premiered at Montreal’s Cabaret Mado in 2018, was performed in Halifax earlier this summer, and is back as a remount as part of Montreal Pride 2019 at Café Cleopatra.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a glam-rock musical about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by genderqueer, East German singer, Hedwig Robinson. The musical opened Off-Broadway in 1998, and won the Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical. The Broadway production, starring Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Hall opened in 2014 and won 4 Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical, Best Lead Actor in a Musical for Harris and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Hall. This local production is a great addition to this year’s Montreal Pride, celebrating LGBTQ+ history, culture and depicting historical issues and norms that were common during the era of the Berlin Wall.
Although the Montreal production was performed with a minimal cast of 2 actors and a 4-piece band, the show maintained a high level of energy from start-to-finish. Bassist Stephen Menold’s pre-show intro, cracking a few jokes with the audience before bringing on Hedwig, was a great way to start the show.
This production featured talented Truro (NS) native Andrew Morrisey as Hedwig, with local talent Noelle Hannibal as Yitzhak. Directed by META winner Nadia Verruci, this production was an entertaining delight from start to finish. The production was more than an hour of non-stop music, monologues and fun for the whole audience. Morrisey’s performance as Hedwig was infectious, his charisma was perfect for the role and delivery was sublime from the moment he walked on stage until the end of the show. Notable numbers in the show included “Angry Inch”, “Wig in a Box” (complete with projected lyrics for the short audience sing-along), “Wicked Little Town” and “The Origin of Love”.
A nice feature, given the smaller stage, 2-person cast and lack of backstage space for props and set, was the use of projections and also hand-drawn animations synced with the live performances of musical numbers throughout the show. The projections brought a fantastic extra level of depth to the production, giving even more meaning to each of the songs and very well timed with the performers.
The live four-piece band on stage, led by Ian Baird, was fantastic—delivering the energy needed for this production, returning the energy in short interactions with the actors as well.
Although the performance was stellar and certainly not to be missed, one small miss in the production was the use of QR codes for audience members to read the show program on cell phones. While a great environmental initiative, the use of QR in Canada is quite limited among cell phone users.
This production is a must-see this Montreal Pride festival, celebrating LGBTQ+ culture and history. With only a cast of two and four-piece band, this In the Wings Promotions production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch is certainly deserving of remounts for future Montreal Pride festivals to come. Here’s hoping that this weekend’s performances isn’t the end of this high-energy Montreal production.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is running at Café Cleopatra until August 11th, with tickets still available for the 11 p.m. performance. Please note that this show is 18+, minors will not be admitted into the venue. Tickets and more information are available at http://hedwigmontreal.com/index.html
