Weekly Dig
Experience
By: Rob De La Teja
June 9, 2011
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Backing up Dante as “the Angry Inch” are The Future Starlets, with his manager, Lisa van Oosterum, reprising her 2002 role as Hedwig’s spiteful lover/backup vocalist Yitzhak (a woman playing a man who wants to play a man that wants to be a woman. Suck on that, Freud). Dante and van Oosterum have been collaborators since they met on a European tour of the The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1998.
“Since the last production, our relationship has grown a lot stronger,” van Oosterum, says. “I think that makes the dynamic between Yitzhak and Hedwig that much stronger this time around.” Instead of planning a grandiose return to the stage, Dante preferred to keep true to the show’s roots by performing in venues with a capacity of fewer than 200. “Hedwig is a struggling artist,” Dante explained. “She’s playing O’Brien’s, she’s playing T.T.’s and she’s playing the All Asia Cafe. She’s not playing the House of Blues.” A translation for our out-of-town friends—she plays dives and independent rock clubs. Minimalist garbage-chic décor and a bitchin’ wig are to be expected.
Yet despite his onstage charisma and desire to reprise his role as Hedwig, Dante still isn’t entirely comfortable about wearing a dress. In spite of his glam persona, his drag experience outside the Hedwig world is almost nonexistent.
“Makeup and stuff like that, well that’s old hat,” Dante said, “but I just like playing a guy. It’s a two-hour prep for me to become Hedwig, and it has to be perfect. I couldn’t do that for every day of my life."