Realistic and codified performance in theater is often based on the premise that performances can be neatly categorized and structured. However, much like human behavior and cultural modalities, performance is rarely a simple either/or scenario. Instead, it is a lesson in disunity. Nowhere is this disunity more evident than in the world of drag performance, where the audience enters a space that fuses realism and codified performance in strange and unexpected ways. This “third way” of viewing performance is not the sublime experience of communitas nor the self-embodiment of realism, but rather the collapsing of these two identities into one.
In the context of performance, this becomes the anthropology of the theater: the transmission of cultural codes through performance. Richard Schechner, in his landmark study of performance, calls this “framed behavior”—a method of conveying the unspoken through the mirror of realistic or codified expression, without relying on written words. Schechner describes realistic performance as “the behavior of characters modeled on everyday life.” Realism, in this sense, functions as a psychological tool that makes a performance relatable. It serves as an impressionistic mirror, allowing the audience to perceive authenticity and truth, even though the very act of realism is a performance, and the performance itself is inherently artificial.
The stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch discards the constraints of realism and codified performance, instead embracing a third way: disunity. The musical follows the journey of Hedwig Robinson, a genderqueer rock singer and East German immigrant living in the U.S. After a botched sex-change operation, Hedwig now resides in Junction City, Kansas, where she has recently been abandoned by her G.I. husband. The play chronicles Hedwig’s trials, amplified by guitar feedback and flamboyant rock songs, all while living in the shadow of her former protégé, Tommy Gnosis. Tommy has stolen Hedwig’s stage persona and, in doing so, capitalized on her act to become a pop sensation—albeit a straight, sanitized version.
Breaking the fourth wall at every turn, Hedwig speaks directly to the audience, utilizing common drag tropes and conventions to express emotion and narrative disinformation. This includes complex rock songs set to poetic verses about Greek mythology, elaborate costumes, and exaggerated hair and makeup—all of which function as cultural signifiers transmitted through a queer lens. But what do we mean by the "queer lens"? It refers to a shared identity and experience free from the constraints of heteronormativity. In drag performance, the queer lens is a defiant way of seeing the world, uninterested in adhering to the rules of the straight and narrow. It represents a suspended state of exalted being—one that rejects the binary laws of gender and instead offers a rapturous vision of queer identity reclaiming its own gaze.
Codified performance in the drag world relies on the understanding and transmission of unspoken codes. A simple gesture, like a neck roll, can express dissatisfaction with the rigid binary of gender. A discreet eye roll can signal that sexuality is never as straightforward as society insists. Even the strategic choice of a wig can act as a shield, protecting queer identities from being sanitized or commodified for the mainstream. To a straight audience, these gestures may seem campy or ridiculous, but to a queer audience, they carry the weight of shared cultural experience.
We see this from the very beginning when Hedwig and her band perform in a seedy nightclub in the middle of nowhere. Hedwig wears garish makeup and an enormous blonde wig, with curls on either side resembling giant toilet paper rolls. The wig is often where audiences divide their attention and loyalties. To a straight viewer, the wig may be a mere sight gag, a ridiculous camp gesture. But to a queer audience, it is a cultural signifier—not because of its “bad taste” or ironic camp value, but precisely because of it. The wig becomes a coded reminder that anyone willing to adopt such a fierce stage presence should not be trifled with. It’s also a signifier of the unjust harm Hedwig has suffered at the hands of the heteronormative world, yet it shows she is not going down without a fight. For a queer audience, Hedwig’s wig is both roadkill and punk rock defiance, a reminder that her experience is also theirs.
This sense of communitas is the foundation upon which codified performance operates in the drag world. A straight audience might see Hedwig as simply a man in a dress, but a queer audience reads her differently. Hedwig is not just a drag queen or a trans rock star—she is a gender outlaw, trafficking in the art of illusion. Judith Butler, in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, reminds us, “There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates. Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.” Drag, then, becomes a reminder that gender is an optical illusion. It also embodies the recognition that being a gender outlaw is a sublime experience, inhabited by both the beautiful and the profane, and unites a community of misfits far beyond the constraints of the heteronormative world.
The codified expression of drag relies on music and verse to shape and transmit a shared cultural identity. Its meaning may be accessible to all audiences, but only fully understood by some. Take, for example, the song The Origin of Love, which runs throughout Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Written by Stephen Trask, this song draws from Plato’s Symposium and tells the myth of the origin of love, illustrating three genders: the two we think we know, and the third—the outlaw gender—created by the Greek gods as a divine prank. The song is suffused with a mystical and melancholic tone, touching on queer identity, love, and the necessity of communitas in an indifferent world. It blends codified expression with a hint of realism, striking a chord in the queer audience that resonates with identity, pride, and loss.
To a straight audience, the song might simply be interpreted as the lament of a lost love orchestrated by vengeful gods. But for queer audiences, it becomes a code for survival—a recognition that community is what sustains us in a world where our identities are marginalized. As Trask’s lyrics conclude: “But I could swear by your expression / That the pain down in your soul / Was the same as the one down in mine.” This final stanza reveals love as the acknowledgment of shared experience. It is a recognition that we are all gender outlaws, forging communitas through music, verse, and identity—not in imitation of heterosexuality, but in defiance of it. As Judith Butler observes in Imitation and Gender Insubordination: “Gay identities work neither to copy or emulate heterosexuality, but rather to expose heterosexuality as an incessant and panicked imitation of its own naturalized idealization.”
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a musical built on codified performance, yet tethered to realism by its fragmented narrative. John Cameron Mitchell, the writer and director, expressed the desire to keep Hedwig in motion while grounding her in realism. In an interview with PopMatters, he stated, “I certainly wanted Hedwig’s world to be one where identification and categories are fluid and confusing, as they are, really, in life.” Realism is used strategically to reveal the limits of love within the binary trap of gender. This is especially apparent when Tommy Gnosis, Hedwig’s love interest and aspiring musical partner, discovers that Hedwig was assigned male at birth just as they are about to consummate their love. The moment Tommy learns of Hedwig’s assigned gender is played like a Greek tragedy: the love he felt before the revelation was free from gender, but after the discovery, it morphs into panic. Unable to reconcile these emotions, Tommy abandons Hedwig, leaving her heartbroken and emotionally shattered.
Realism is used in Hedwig to generate empathy and draw the audience into Hedwig’s plight. Hedwig has not changed, but the way Tommy sees her has irrevocably shifted. This moment of realism is essential—it allows us to grasp the magnitude of Hedwig’s loss and serves as a mirror to the cruelty faced by many queer people seeking love and acceptance in a world dominated by straight norms. Hedwig's transformation is internal, but the external world’s inability to accept her remains a cruel constant. This rupture in Tommy’s love reveals the harsh reality of how queer people, especially those who defy gender norms, often find their relationships tested by society's rigid expectations. In this moment, realism invites the audience to reflect on the emotional devastation that comes with rejection, not just in a romantic context, but in the larger struggle for acceptance in a straight-dominated world. Through this, Hedwig allows us to see the universal cruelty of queer marginalization and the fragility of love when it collides with societal norms.
Drag performance, in its essence, is an art of illusion. But what happens when we strip away the illusion? Hedwig suggests that, underneath the layers of performance, realism peeks out. The art of drag, then, is to expose the fourth wall and not allow the performer to hide behind it. We can understand Hedwig’s plight and witness it, making it both a personal and universal experience.
Realism, as a byproduct of theater, is often an illusion of naturalism and, to a lesser extent, truth. But drag isn’t about realism—it’s about realness. Realness, in drag, means embodying the truest version of something, but this realness is only a form of realism when seen through the queer lens. Drag, then, operates in a cultural code that refuses to let realism dominate what we see and feel. Instead, it transmits a unique set of optics to the audience, where the stage becomes both a mirror and an echo chamber for realism. It is a pulpit for shattering barriers, provoking dialogue, and presenting alternative narratives that speak to social and political issues, all bound together by communitas.
In the end, the line between realism and codified performance is arbitrary—an illusion we cling to in our quest for answers in a world insistent on categories. As we try to make these distinctions, we find the futility of the quest itself. This third way of experiencing performance—somewhere between the sublime world of codified performance and the agony of realism—offers us neither answers nor resolutions. Instead, it provides a space of disunity where, paradoxically, we find a kind of harmony and peace.
Friedrich Nietzsche seems to suggest we approach realism (and, perhaps, all expressions of art) with skepticism. He writes, “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Or, in simpler terms, perhaps it is a fool’s errand to seek definitive answers from a work of art. The role of art is not to provide answers but to ask questions—questions that challenge and explore the depths of the human soul, which is stitched together with paradox, complexity, and mystery. Art, like life, remains forever a perplexing question mark.
Bibliography
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge,
1990.
Butler, Judith. Imitation and Gender Insubordination. Print. Rpt. in Inside/Out. Ed. Diana
Fuss. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Fuchs, Cynthia, Pop Matters Film. Interview with John Cameron Mitchell.
PopsMatter. www.popmatters.com/film/interviews/mitchell-john-
cameron.html.
Mentis, Mandia. Mediated Learning: Teaching, Tasks, and Tools to Unlock Cognitive
Potential. Corwin Press, 2008.
Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. Routledge, 2013
Trask, Stephen, Hedwig and the Angry Inch/The Origin Of Love, Hybrid Recordings.
HY-20024, 2001, CD.
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