How Seattle’s ArtsWest is bringing ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ into 2023

Nicholas Japaul Bernard hadn’t been in Seattle long when he landed the lead role in ArtsWest’s 2018 production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” Was it a part he’d been born to play?

“As a child, I found out early on that irreverence looks really good on me,” Bernard said.

Now, he’s returning to ArtsWest to play Hedwig again, this time as an established presence on Seattle stages. If you didn’t know the formerly New York-based performer before seeing his crystal-voiced prep school outcast in ACT Theatre’s “Choir Boy” last year, you definitely wouldn’t forget him after.

ArtsWest’s revisitation of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s rock musical about a genderqueer German singer and her romantic and professional tribulations opens June 29. But Bernard wasn’t interested in a mere reprise, he said. He wanted a show that didn’t look like, or make you laugh like, just any “Hedwig” staging.

We spoke with Bernard about what it’s like playing Hedwig again in a markedly different social and artistic climate. Excerpts of the conversation, edited for length and clarity, follow.

“Hedwig” is a show that has a lot of flexibility in how it’s produced, whether that’s the time period or the place. Does that have an effect on how you approach returning to a role that you performed a number of years ago?

Absolutely. That’s actually the main thing I wanted to focus on coming back when [artistic director] Mat [Wright] asked me to do it. I made it very clear that I was in no way interested in a remounting. The show’s original energy that it brought [when it premiered in 1998 off-Broadway] — it was a musical that no one had ever seen. “Hedwig” did to musicals what everyone claims “Rent” did to musicals when it comes to what is acceptable to be seen on a stage. But being as old as it is now — not a dig; it’s just been many years — and being produced as much as it’s been done now, and now it’s been on Broadway, it was really important for me that we dive back into and retain that original maverick, [edgy], first-time-you’ve-ever-seen-it-like-this energy.

What are some of the ways you’re accomplishing that?

A big thing I would say is bringing the show into the now. You can set it in any time period, and I think that either translates into people just setting it in the ’90s when it’s originally set or having it just be a little bit more nebulous. This one, we’re specifically [setting] this in 2023 and have a couple of elegant wordplay things to poke fun at, but also make sense of, the fact that Hedwig is doing this in 2023 even though all of their life takes place around and during the Cold War. 

Thinking about 2018 to now, there have been huge changes in American society, theater at large and Seattle theater specifically. How are those upheavals affecting how you’re putting on the show now?

All of the anti-trans legislation that’s been going on — that’s kind of the cornerstone reason to do the show right now and to put this show in conversation with right now. The easy way would just be to do the show and have the way that the show exists manage the conversation. But I don’t think that’s true to what the show was originally trying to do. The show wasn’t meant to just be a museum piece. A big thing we’re talking about right now is that the thing that happens to Hedwig — going through the [botched vaginoplasty that leaves Hedwig with the titular “angry inch”] — we’re going to see a spike in that kind of behavior if these laws keep getting passed. These back-alley operations, under the table, away from the eyes of the law, are going to get people killed or they’re going to ruin people’s lives. We’re taking Hedwig’s story and putting that — not in conversation with — but nose-to-nose with the current moment we’re in right now.

How has director Eddie DeHais set the tone for that goal?

Eddie has really developed this way of building a room that centers love and chaos. Eddie’s very good about knowing exactly what they want to do, but understanding that it’s not just about what they want to do. [The] company is all Black artists, from the music director to the cast. This is specifically a Black show that we’re making. Eddie always says that they’re here just to facilitate. They are not dumbing down the fact that they are a master of their craft. They just decided that being a master of that craft is to lend their help wherever they can, by putting us as Black people in the room in the driver’s seat.

Does returning to a role you played in your early days in Seattle feel like it’s fulfilling some things on your artistic journey?

It does. When I got here in 2017, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think I was hot [expletive], but I was ready to learn. By putting myself in that more submissive position of “What do these people have to give me, both negative and positive?” I definitely think I’m a much better artist than I was in 2017. I’m a much more intuitive thinker. I’m a much more spontaneous actor. I definitely think that this is a huge marker for me in my career in Seattle. As I get older and my career expands to wherever Miss God wills it to expand to, this will be a high point in my artistic life for sure.