Hedwig and the Raging Thumb | Hymn to love (gender neutral)

Three years after the scheduled date – or a pandemic later – Benoit McGinnis will finally put on the high heels and blonde wig of Hedwig, a colorful “punk rock-queer” character. An ideal role for this gifted actor who likes to find himself where no one expects him.

Between repertoire and nested creation, soap operas, series and variety shows, Benoit McGinnis likes to explore foreign universes and territories. This winter, the actor-singer will be featured in the musical tele-hook Zenith hosted by Véronique Cloutier (at Ici Radio-Canada), before playing the painter Francis Bacon, in the theatrical adaptation of Larry Tremblay’s novel final picture of love, in May, at Usine C.

But first, Benoit McGinnis will plunge, starting Thursday, into the punk rock universe of the Quebec adaptation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. A leap into the margins for the actor who has played several classic roles (Mozart, Hamlet, Caligula, Néron), but also leading authors of Quebec theater, including Tremblay, Bouchard and Boucher.

Created in New York in the late 1990s, the work of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask became a cult film, then an award-winning Broadway musical (four Tony awards in 2014), with Neil Patrick Harris in the role major. In the adaptation of this musical theater show – the songs have also been translated into French –, the actor touches on several facets of his profession. “I transform, I play comedy and drama, I sing with a rock band. There is also a stand-up side, without a fourth wall, because I appeal to the public. Like in a bar or a cabaret. »

For nearly 90 minutes, the actor will struggle like crazy on stage to bring his furious character to life. Helped by his artistic accomplice for more than 20 years, René Richard Cyr, who signs the staging, Élisabeth Gauthier Pelletier (who plays Hedwig’s husband-chorister) and three musicians under the musical direction of André Papanicolaou.

Need love

Out of love for a straight man, Hedwig has sex change surgery, an operation that will turn out very badly: “thumb in fury” refers to the rest of his penis atrophied by a few centimeters, like an appendage that reminds him of his need to love. Going from disappointment to disappointment, on the heart side, Hedwig will leave her country (Germany) to reinvent herself in America. Having become a rather intense rock singer, an unlikely cross between Marjo and Gisèle Lullaby, Hedwig tours with her group of musicians, Les Pouces en furie, in bars all over the United States. In search of love and freedom.

Benoit McGinnis clarifies that this is not a drag show or a play about transidentity. “We follow the life of a non-binary, non-gendered person who is desperately looking for love. Hedwig wants to meet the right person who will love her madly, accept her as she is, with her difference. She tells us about her life, her desire to find her better half, the one who will complete her everything. »

And this, even if his love quest takes him to Wichita, Kansas, a country more or less open to sexual diversity at the turn of the last century. No matter.

Hedwig tackles the question of gender fluidity, before the letter. The idea that a person doesn’t have to fit into a mold, an identity box, to live their life.

“It’s really topical,” says Benoit McGinnis, who waited nearly 10 years before seeing the Quebec premiere of the musical. “When I saw the show on Broadway in 2014, I didn’t quite understand the story because of my English. But I felt the community, the gathering, the feeling of living together. It feels good to see a story that says to love yourself as you are…without judgment,” says McGinnis

Hedwig and the raging thumb therefore constitutes a hymn to sexual freedom and diversity. The production will tour Quebec after the premiere in Montreal.

At Studio TD (ex-Astral) in Montreal, from January 26 to February 4. The show will then go on tour throughout Quebec.