Like many a queer kid before him, actor, writer and director John Cameron Mitchell – creator of cult hit musical-turned-movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the eye-opening Shortbus – upped sticks from El Paso, Texas and headed for New York City full of dreams.
It was the 80s, and his timing wasn’t perfect. “I came into it when AIDS hit,” he recalls. “We had just come out of the hippie era and the blossoming of queer culture, with Harvey Milk and such, and then AIDS kind of laid the optimism low.”
The crisis – and the assassination of Milk in 1978 – spurred a new wave of queer activism in America, following the Stonewall Riots of ‘69, fuelled by art and punk spirit as much as politics. “It was a multi-pronged attack and ACT UP and TAG and all those groups really saved a generation of queer men,” Mitchell says. “Lesbians really rushed to the front, helping their gay brothers. It was life or death, so to me mortality was connected to sexuality as well as gender.”
The maelstrom fed into the origins of Hedwig, about a would-be singer in East Berlin who undergoes a failed gender re-assignment surgery in order to marry a US Soldier and move to the States, but is abandoned soon after they do. Drawing on Mitchell’s childhood experiences traveling the world following his military father, who once commanded US territory in West Berlin, it also nods to his German babysitter in Texas and her sideline in sex work.
This colourful history comes alive in John Cameron Mitchell: The Origin of Love, which debuted at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival before heading to Canberra, the Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne and Brisbane’s QPAC.
“I’m kind of telling the story of making Hedwig, the queer punk rock background of it and the club I started with [co-songwriter] Stephen Trask, two halves of one whole,” Mitchell says.
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The bittersweet show addresses his mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, and the death of his former partner Jack Steeb, who played bass in the original Hedwig band.
Accompanied by a band and the mighty lungs of backing singer Amber Martin, Mitchell also includes a song from his latest movie How to Talk to Girls at Parties. Yet to be released in Australia, it’s a kooky alien invasion yarn set at a time when punk rock pushed back hard against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Based on a Neil Gaiman short story, it features a cracking cameo from Nicole Kidman sporting a show-stopping wig circa David Bowie in Labyrinth.
It’s the second time Mitchell has worked with the Australian star, after she tapped him to direct her Oscar-nominated turn in the emotionally fraught Rabbit Hole.
“We sort of do things our own way,” he says. “I mean, she has had to play the game a bit longer because of the Hollywood thing, but we can see her extricating herself from the bondage of that, from the man, and from the fake religions and the stardom and stuff. It’s all about making things that challenge her, challenge an audience, and actually saying the things she thinks need to be said.”
He continues: “We don’t like to be hemmed in, tied down, told what to do, or limited by a cultural view of what a woman or a gay man is supposed to be. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I like Madonna. I mean, I hate Madonna. She’s really mean, just so you know. It’s a deal breaker. Don’t love people who are mean.”
Which brings us neatly to the internet and the unrighteous fury of partisan screaming on social media. “The polarisation that began with the internet has created checklists of beliefs," Mitchell says.
"If you are right or left, that weren’t necessarily agreed upon."
Saying that he "draws the line at censorship", Mitchell was clearly a smart pick to play openly gay provocateur Felix Staples on The Good Fight, a character clearly based on Milo Yiannopoulos.
“I find him a very fascinating figure, because he has some points, you know, about censorship and victim culture, but then he couched it in radically racist, homophobic and sexist comments meant to grab attention, but you sort of sense he didn’t even mean it, which made it even more repulsive,” Mitchell offers.
“He was just using it to get more clicks, more viewers and more money, and he aligned himself with the alt-right, then they killed him, which they should have. He’s burnt all his bridges and I have no sympathy for him, but I do find him fascinating, and you can also see the connection between gayness and fascism there, where they eroticise their oppressor.”
While punk has on occasion been co-opted into nationalistic aggression, Mitchell harks back to a kinder form. “Early punk had a beautiful freedom about it that was also caring, playing for the miners during the strikes, and there was joy and a sense of humour in it, shocking in order to correct, not just to smash for shock’s sake.”
Much like the infamous 'Star Spangled Banner' serenade in Shortbus, or the gender-queer self-creation narrative of Hedwig?
“If I can get inspired and write a song and I don’t know anything, then you can grab hold of something and make your life.”
John Cameron Mitchell: The Origin of Love is at the Canberra Theatre Centre July 4, Sydney Opera House July 6, Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall July 10 and Brisbane’s QPAC on July 17. Click on links for more details or to book tickets.
