The Scope

Photo by Clair Hipditch

Cult play Hedwig and the Angry Inch follows the story of a transgendered rock goddess from her humble roots in communist East Berlin to her botched sex-change operation, her life in the United States, her rivalry with fellow rock star Tommy Gnosis, and her fight for fame, recognition, and self-acceptance.

Brad Hodder, who stars in C2C Theatre’s production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, spoke with The Scope’s Juls Mack about the play, and about sneaking extremely underage girls into bars.

Did you have any qualms about doing such a controversial play here in St. John’s?
Yeah, no. With C2C that’s not actually a conversation we ever have. The advantage of being here, running a company, is that you can pick the shows you want to do. The shows that are either good roles for you or the shows that challenge you as an artist, or you know, whatever you want. No one’s making million of bucks on this anyway, so you do shows that you want to do. I’ve got a hundred other things to do with my free time than go to rehearsal, so I pick things like Hedwig, so it’s fun to go to work.

And about the controversy… Uhh.. Whatever. St. John’s can handle it.

So would you invite your nan to the show?
No. No, I won’t invite my grandmother, but I think my folks will be there. And, uh, I just had a baby, over the summer, three months old and I’m hoping she’ll make it down to the show.

Oh, is the production all-ages even though it’s in a bar?
I guess not, because it is in a bar—the Rock House—and we are doing it as a bar show, so it can’t be all ages. I assume it’s for those 19 or up…

Including your daughter? Did you find her a fake ID?
I think babies can be snuck in.

Is Hedwig is always done in rock bars?
No, not always. It’s been done in restaurants, and it gets done in proper theatres sometimes.

The idea of using the Rock House was credited to Charlie, the artistic director. He was very clear from the onset that he wanted to do this as a rock show and have that feel and vibe, with not really big production values, but rather a very raw… a very simplified sort of version.

It’s kind of what C2C does, we try to always strip things down. We try to look for what are the bare necessities we need to tell the story. You end up having to make very creative choices, like you find these plays that sometimes need a living room, but, say, you can’t have a living room. So it forces you to think about, well, why is it a living room?

Hedwig and the Angry Inch runs Thursday, November 19th at 8:30pm with special guests Kujo and Saturday, November 21st at 8:30pm and 11:30pm with Matt Hornell & The Diamond Minds at the Rock House on George Street. Tickets are $10 and can be bought at Model Citizens and Fred’s Records.