The deftly neurotic Hedwig – named after a young heroine in an Ibsen play who saves a wild duck – is the not-so-proud owner of a bumpy Barbie crotch after a hacked sex-change operation. (Thus the angry inch.) He-she and band – with almost authentic East Bloc naïveté – mix up a moving version of Western – and I don’t mean that in the cowboy sense – rock ’n’ roll angst: Bowie, Meat Loaf, etc. But the music and lyrics are as intense and culturally literate as they are youthfully ridiculous – as if to offer a level of engagement beyond, but not without, dressing in drag and throwing toast. The surrealist throwback, "Exquisite Corpse" says: "The overlapping way diseases are spread/ Through a tornado body/ With a hand grenade head/ And the legs are two lovers entwined."
In another fervent moment, Hedwig obsesses over finding his lost "other half" in the mascara-running Platonic myths of "The Origin of Love." Got meaning? Of course not. But, for God’s sake, a boy lost his goods so you can dance around your kitchen naked to great music! So don’t just stand there ...