Poor Hedwig, sad Hedwig. Daddy’s long gone and mommy’s cold as ice. The American GI who loved her insisted on gender-reassignment surgery as her ticket to the States. The surgery, uh, missed, and she’s left with an angry inch in an unfortunate locale. What’s a girl to do? Take the show on the road? Turn it into a cultish rock musical? But of course.

Hedwig is the transsexual alter ego of a German-born girly-boy named Hansel. As she follows another former love (rock star Tommy Gnosis) from town to town, playing dive bars while he sells out arenas, she tells her story mostly in concert and monologue.

To those in the know, this is likely a delicious reunion.

To those of us meeting Hedwig for the first time, it’s a love-hate kind of thing. “Hedwig” was born in 2000 on the off-Broadway stage. In 2001, her movie entertained multitudes. Actor’s Express, which staged the show in 2003, envisions this reprise — with a new set, star and director — as a slam-bang finish to its 20th anniversary season.

Artistic Director Freddie Ashley’s reimagining has plenty of slam-bang, particularly with its rocking band the Angry Inch, again led by Angela Motter, who returns as the devoted and angel-voiced Yitzhak. What it lacks is enough heart and soul to sell its themes — that we all want to find love, that we all want to know ourselves as completely as possible and that we want to like the people we become.

This is, supposedly, Hedwig’s universal journey, but Craig Waldrip’s ride is all attitude and poses. He clearly works hard, in spiky 6-inch heels no less, but never reveals the Hedwig beneath the heavy blond wig or beyond the glam-skank hot pants. He rarely transits past her pout or her pelvis.

The text (by the original Hedwig, John Cameron Mitchell), brims with wit, sass and wry observations. It talks about “the geography of human contact” and how Hedwig is torn in two, like the city of Berlin was by its Wall. Too many of composer Stephen Trask’s song lyrics are muddled, however, either by a lack of balance between band and singer or by Waldrip’s habit of grazing the microphone with his lips. It’s too bad because he has a wonderfully emotive voice when it comes through as it does on the ballads.

“Hedwig” won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, or even pint of ale. The double-entendre-laced text is definitely for an adult crowd. What it comes down to is relationships: How intimately you know Hedwig before the show will determine how much you enjoy her in it.

The 411: 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday. Through July 19 (no show July 6). $22 and $25; VIP seats $35. Actor’s Express, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-607-7469, www.actors-express.com.

Bottom line: Potential unrealized.

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See and Do this Weekend

By Kirsten Tagami | Thursday, July 3, 2008, 10:00 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Palmetto, Ga., is a lovely spot. It feels like you’re way out in the country, even though it’s only a half-hour drive from downtown Atlanta.

Add a free outdoor concert by a world-class orchestra, and you’ve got a great reason for a short road trip. On Saturday, July 5, at 8 p.m. the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will perform beloved classics such as Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” as well as pops standards such as Gershwin’s “Girl Crazy Overture” at Hutcheson Ferry Park in Palmetto. ASO assistant conductor Mei-Ann Chen will lead the ASO musicians in the concert.

For more information and link to driving directions, see the ASO’s website.

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Take a “Monster” to the beach

By Phil Kloer | Thursday, July 3, 2008, 07:58 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Usually, “beach books” are paperback novels. Chick lit, thrillers, mysteries, romances, that sort of thing. But the idea is something fun and compelling that isn’t too taxing.

But one of this summer’s hot beach books is non-fiction. “The Monster of Florence” by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi is No.3 on this Sunday’s New York Times non-fiction bestseller list, and it’s just the kind of book you want to take to the beach, provided you’re not too squeamish.

Preston is an American thriller writer who moved to Italy and met Spezi, a journalist. Spezi was obsessed with a serial killer who was dubbed the Monster of Florence, a man who killed couples who were out parking in the countryside and did some grotesque things to the women’s corpses with a knife. He operated in the 1980s and was never caught; when Thomas Harris was hanging out in Italy researching his novel “Hannibal,” he sniffed around the Monster’s case.

Preston and Spezi tell a story that starts out like your basic true crime non-fiction book. But along the way, as the Monster eludes the police and everyone gets more and more frustrated, the whole narrative switches to political and judicial bungling. Suspects are arrested, even tried and convicted, only to be set free when they are clearly innocent. Increasingly frustrated, some prosecutors actually target the authors, who are showing them up in public, arresting Spezi and trying him in a sequence that would do Kafka proud.

In the end, the Monster is never caught. The authors have theories, but not particularly iron-clad one. Preston acknowledges that the elements don’t really come together to make “Monster” as satisfying as a good novel. “These were murders without motive, theories without evidence, and a story with no end,” he writes. Actually, “The Monster of Florence” works despite those problems. I recommend it.

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