Hedwig backlash: Postponing show sets trans movement back

Critics and keyboard warriors have lined up for the kill over Hugh Sheridan’s casting as a trans character in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The world has gone mad.

Where do we draw the line when actors are being criticised for simply doing just that, acting?

Criticism of Hugh Sheridan being cast as Hedwig in the Australian production of John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch is beyond ridiculous.

It is offensive to those who have fought long and hard for equality because it trivialises the gender debate.

We are all for inclusion and hearing people but to cancel, or postpone is the word being used, the production because the trans community is angered that a trans actor is not playing the lead, is nonsensical.

It is ridiculous because actors play different characters. They always have.

Hugh Sheridan made up as Hedwig, from Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Sure, it would be amazing to see a trans actor play Hedwig but did any audition? And if they did, were they the best person for the role? There is no doubting Sheridan’s credentials. He is an acclaimed actor, a NIDA graduate no less.

We also feel for Sheridan, who recently opened up about his own sexuality and made himself so publicly vulnerable. To attack someone who is an advocate for and member of the LGBTIQ+ community is dangerous, cruel and blatantly mean spirited.

Yes, there should be a more diverse representation of people from a range of backgrounds, religions, cultures portrayed on the small and big screen and the stage.

Sheridan, who recently came out as being open to relationships with both men and women, has been criticised for being a CIS male and therefore should not play Hedwig. A cis male is a person who was born male and identifies as male.

Inspired by his own life growing up as a military child in Germany, Mitchell wrote Hedwig with a heavy focus on gender identity. In the production, Hedwig reveals she underwent a botched male to female surgery to flee socialist Germany in the 1990s.

Mitchell himself has been quoted as saying Hedwig is not a transgender story.

“He was a boy who was quite comfortable in his gender and was coerced into a mutilation, really, by a boyfriend, mother and really the patriarchy, if you think about it. (Coerced by) the binarchy that says you have to be one or the other for certain things to happen, for you to get married and so on,” Mitchell told the Hollywood Reporter in 2019. “But it’s not really a trans story. There’s all kinds of gender fluidity and exploration. But to be trans you have to want to be. You choose to be.”

Straight female Jessica Marais played Carlotta in The Tele-movie about her life as a trans woman. Heather Mitchell, also shockingly straight, played trans woman Catherine McGregor in the Sydney Theatre Company production of Still Point Turning: The Catherine McGregor story to rave reviews.

Neil Patrick Harris played Hedwig on Broadway, winning him a Best Actor Tony Award no less. Harris is openly gay but not trans. Others to have played Hedwig include Andrew Rannells and Michael C Hall.

Casey Donovan photographed on the Gold Coast. Picture: Jerad Williams

Hugh Sheridan at Bondi Beach. Picture: Christian Gilles

Productions have run the world over – Brazil, Czech Republic, Austria, Mexico, Turkey, Thailand and Japan to name a few of the countries where it has played.

To ‘postpone’ the production with further announcements of casting is a weak move that sets the trans movement back, not forward. It is giving in to the faceless keyboard warriors that led the campaign.

Think about the amount of people that would have bought tickets to see the production to see Sheridan and his co-star Casey Donovan that wouldn’t otherwise have.

How fabulous that they may have walked away with more of an open mind about gender identity. What a wasted opportunity to illuminate, educate, and … heaven forbid, entertain. We should be bringing people to the table, not shutting them out.

Let’s also think about the fact that this was a production that was going ahead in a year that has decimated the entertainment industry because of the coronavirus pandemic.

What now for the 50 plus people that were going to be employed for the season? Who is going to pay their bills?

This whole debate dismisses the richness of who we are as human beings and narrows it down to nothing but pure identity, in this case gender and sexuality.

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