Here are a few songs from Darren and Lena’s last performance in San Francisco, 10/30/16, in honor of their last day on tour. After the cut, our reviews of one of Darren’s Hedwig shows we saw in San Francisco, the 10/15/16 matinee.
I’ve heard that some people don’t like matinees because they’re not at good as the evening shows, but I have discovered that with Darren’s Hedwig, I LOVE matinees – I love his lower energy performances just as much as his higher energy ones, maybe more. The way he was speaking today reminded me of the first time Cathy and I saw it, on May 10th, 2015. His voice was deeper, he was speaking more softly, in a more sultry way. He got less and less sultry over the course of his Broadway run, and I felt like the sultry was back much more today than I’ve heard it before. I was so happy to hear it.
He added in a couple new things in the melodies here and there – Origin of Love was one of them, though I can’t quite remember where he made the changes. I’ll have to listen to it again. He’s started doing some interesting things in Wicked Little Town Reprise, like kind of yelling the last “wicked” as he’s lowering down from the platform. Origin of Love and Wicked Little Town win for the best songs today, I think, though Wig in a Box is also in the running. He’s also started singing the word “mighty” in Origin of Love on the line “by the mighty hand of Jove” in the quiet, soft way he used to do it in his early days on Broadway, which I’m also very happy about. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before.
– In Sugar Daddy, during the Luther portion and Hedwig’s response, Darren didn’t lay down on the car because after he took the twinkly skirt off, it got stuck on his hand (or one of his bracelets? I’m not sure what it was stuck to). He spent the entire time that Luther was speaking and most of the time he was replying trying to get the skirt off, then when he finally got it off, he jumped up on the car for the dancing portion when the song picks up again.
– On the Long Grift, Lena changed the phrasing on the second “look what you’ve done” – the mic fell off of the stand, and she had to rush to pick it up from the floor, so when she started singing is when she managed to get it back.
– When Yitzhak is supposed to say “November 9, 1988,” she said 1989. There was a pause that probably only I felt was awkward because I knew what she was supposed to say, and I wasn’t sure what she was going to do to save it. After the pause, she continued as usual, and then said 1990 when she would usually say 1989. Hopefully no one in the audience was particularly fresh on the dates of the Berlin Wall!
– After Wicked Little Town was one of my favorite Yitzwig moments with Darren and Lena; Lena was so wrapped up in Hedwig when she went over to give her her water and such. They looked like they were speaking quietly to each other for a long time, and they sort of nuzzled noses, and Darren affectionately touched Lena’s face. It was wonderful.
– On that same note, at the end of today’s show was the most joyfully in tune I’ve felt Darren and Lena have been in the times I’ve seen them – when Yitzhak came out as Krystal Nacht, Darren looked so thrilled to see her, and they seemed so happy to be free and themselves, and to see each other being free and themselves. I felt like there was a lot of love between them today in general.
– We ALMOST got that nice silence after Wicked Little Town Reprise – the audience was perfectly quiet, I thought it was going to happen, but then one person had to yell YOW and then everyone starting cheering and clapping. Kind of frustrating, but not a big deal because it didn’t influence the performances or anything.
Overall, this was one of my most favorite performances I’ve seen.
Darren and Lena were so cute and cuddly as they rubbed noses!
The standby was onstage for Jacek, the bass player, but then we saw Matt Duncan, the regular Jacek, hanging around near the stage after the show, so maybe he brought guests today or something.
Origin of Love and Wicked Little Town were absolutely gorgeous. Like Sarah, I love it when he softens his voice.
The crowd not only cheered after the Wicked Little Town Reprise, but a few people got into a contest to see who could make the last noise. Thursday night, they burst into a giant round of applause. I nearly jumped out of my skin. The other 2 shows have been silent at the end of the song. Who knows what’ll happen tonight.
We were back in Row O this afternoon. There is more space between the rows in the Golden Gate than in the Belasco, and the front row is ~4-5 feet from the stage (in the Belasco your legs are under the stage, no kidding!), so everything is correspondingly further back. It gave me a nice wide view of the stage to really take in the lighting and visual design, which don’t get enough credit. Everyone talks about the strobes, and the Origin of Love scrim job, but the lights are really interesting and symbolic (and just plain gorgeous) at other times, especially The Long Grift and WLTR. I think there might be some changes in the lighting design from Broadway, but I’m not certain.
As we were walking down Market St. after the show, there was a group of people loudly exclaiming to each other about how amazing Darren and Lena were, and how shockingly rocked up his arrangements are. The dudebro of the group was really worked up about how fantastic the RAWK of it all was.