Last February we spoke with Tony Award winner Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) about her Obsessed series of EPs on Ghostlight Records. On Thursday, Hall will be at Catalina Bar & Grill offering up her cabaret show, Art of the Audition: From Falling Apart to Nailing the Part.
To update you on the Obsessed EPs, since February Hall has released new EPs and videos of songs by Elton John, The Cranberries and Pink. Coming up in the series will be EPs of the songs of Radiohead and David Bowie amongst others. Here’s an idea of what might be on the Radiohead EP.
Art of the Audition, on the other hand, finds Hall presenting more traditional Broadway fare. These are songs and stories about Lena Hall’s career seen through the prism of her auditioning for various shows. To get a sense of her approach to auditioning, this video from 2016 gives you an idea how she approaches her auditions (and also a story that finds its way into the cabaret show.)
I’m using her appearance in Los Angeles to offer up some of our conversation that didn’t make the earlier column.
I find it interesting that in a Playbill interview during your run in Kinky Boots you mentioned that your worst costume ever was playing male ensemble characters in Dracula. You also said that you’d change roles with Billy Porter and “if you put enough make-up on me I look like a drag queen.” Rather ironic since most people know you for playing Yitzhak in Hedwig. It seems drag has, after all, been good to you.
I know. It has. How funny that I said that and then to have done a Broadway show where I play a man who is the ultimate drag queen. That’s too funny. I don’t even remember saying that. I love the idea of genderless casting – to cast men in female roles and women in male roles. Or all female casts or all male casts. That’s not something that’s done all that often. I think it’s something that interests me all the time.
Trivia: Lena Hall was “Second Vampire” and Ensemble in Dracula. She played “Nicola” in Kinky Boots. For both shows she was billed as Celina Carvajal. In this same Playbill interview she tells a crazy audition story that is also relayed in her cabaret show. So if you are going to see her Thursday know that this serves as a spoiler alert.
The first EP was music from Hedwig. Why do those songs first?
I got to essentially record these songs the way I would sing them but not in the context in the show as a character. I think the biggest difference was Wicked Little Town, turning it into a simple one-guitar song and then raising the key a little. The song is about heartbreak and being used and everyone has felt that way. I’m able to sing as a performer and let it speak that way.
Have any of the artists you’ve covered lead to your meeting some of them?
Not yet. Hopefully it will. If these artists were flattered by my interpretations – and I’m sending them like a love letter as an artist and wanting to expose new fans to their work – I would hope that I would get to see them or perform with them. Apparently Peter Gabriel signed off on it and really loved it. Elton John’s people are also thrilled. That’s all I’ve heard. I don’t know what it means.
How do you respond when you have to listen back to recordings you’ve made or seen videos of your work?
I’m like a hypercritical person of myself, like a lot of people are. I can’t watch myself on a screen. I can’t stand looking at myself and I want to fix everything. The same with my voice. It’s hard for me to listen to myself.
Are there similarities between what you do in live performance say in a cabaret act and what you did for these recordings?
You’ll hear imperfections and people aren’t used to hearing that any more. We forget how beautiful the human voice is and how perfect it is in all of its imperfections. Because of Instagram and everything that’s out there, it’s all about perfection and there’s no such thing as perfection.
In your cabaret show you sometimes chose rather unorthodox songs for your auditions. They don’t seem to necessarily fit either your age at certain points or the show for which you are auditioning.
I think that I still don’t have a great sense of what I can and cannot do. I love taking risks and I love being allowed to take those risks. I love people who do that and don’t get scared off by something that’s new or different.
Lena Hall does different. The woman who played Yitzhak in Hedwig, the woman who recorded and will release 12 EPs this year and the woman who takes the stage at Catalina Bar & Grill on Thursday are all the same woman. The three sides of Lena Hall.