“Nothing is wrong with your eyesight: The bitch is black.”
Yep, that’s Taye Diggs bantering in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” on Broadway. It’s a special musical indeed where the title role is so widely defined that Diggs’ predecessors have included Neil Patrick Harris, Ally Sheedy and Michael Cerveris — actors who have, oh, nothing in common.
This time, though, creative casting may have reached its limit. Diggs has proved himself a capable actor in the past, from “Rent” to TV’s “Private Practice,” but he’s completely miscast here. It has nothing to do with him being black and everything to do with him looking pretty damn uncomfortable in the role.
When the musical originated off-Broadway, in 1998, co-creator John Cameron Mitchell himself played the “slip of a girly boy from East Berlin” who became a woman named Hedwig for the love of an American G.I. (He was also one of Harris’ successors in the role on Broadway.)
It’s hard imagining the buff Diggs and his mammoth biceps ever looking like a “girly boy,” but OK, the power of imagination and all that — we’ll buy it on credit.
The bigger fail is that Diggs never connects with Hedwig. This broad’s had a tough life, from her botched sex change to her affair with a user who stole her musical ideas. Hedwig’s a survivor, fueled by rage and bitter humor, and she pours it all in her music — the show is framed like a rock concert with long spoken interludes in between Stephen Trask’s glam-rock songs.
But whereas good rock — not to mention good acting — flows from the gut, you never forget Diggs is performing, from his awkward strut in platform shoes to the pseudo-antagonistic audience interactions. How can spitting water onto the first row look so forced? Even the cathartic show closer, “Midnight Radio,” falls flat. Faring much better is Rebecca Naomi Jones (“American Idiot,” “Passing Strange”), who joined the show in April. Admittedly her part is a lot less demanding, but Jones is wonderfully effective as Yitzhak, the star’s long-suffering husband/backing singer. “We look like Milli Vanilli up there,” Hedwig now cracks — the new stage chit-chat also includes a reference to Idina Menzel, Diggs’ ex-wife.
It’s a testament to the greatness of the “Hedwig” score that the show still harbors pockets of magic: It’s hard to think of anybody who could totally wreck “Angry Inch” and “Wig in a Box.” Still, let’s hope the producers don’t try to find that elusive star.