The best musical of the season thusfar features a platinum blonde, a hulking brunette, a stage full of oddball musicians, and an offstage rock star. @rtists Theatre Project has revived their successful production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch with much of the original cast. For those idiots, such as myself, who missed the first incarnation, boogie your way to Soul Invictus to hear what it is that everyone was squealing about.

This is the type of theatre I’ve been waiting for. John Cameron Mitchell’s stirring and surprisingly deep script is brought to screaming life by James Asimenios under the careful direction of Scott Pierce. Like a drowning diva examining through song the tumult of her life, Asimenios is a Hedwig whose love and loss is iconic of Western civilization over the past 40 years. Stephen Trask’s songs are lyrical and loaded with symbolism through which Asimenios’s Hedwig tries to work out her many losses, physical (a botched sex-change leaves her with only the band’s name), politically (she has fled Communist East Berlin to Consumerist America), spiritual (she is looking for her twin, torn from her at the dawn of time), and psychological. Oh, and it’s also a helluva set of glam rock, too.

While her alter ego, rock star Tommy Gnosis, plays to the big crowds at the nearby Memorial Coliseum, Hedwig waxes poetic about her remarkable life. Asimenios is a-fucking-mazing. Totally in the moment. Totally believable. Completely honest emotionally, physically (well, to a point of course), and spiritually. Every double-edged barb and enlightening entendre he says seems extemporaneous. Everything he sings comes from a place so dark and desperate that it’s almost embarrassing to watch as he primps and wails.

From the wings, Yitzak (Tracy Payne) yearns and despises his imprisonment, being forced to watch his love writhe for another man. In a part that can be overdone, it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing as well. Her eyes scream volumes, and her singing reveals an equally scarred soul. The band, save for the inimitable Terre Steed showing prowess on the keyboards and screaming 80s, Jason Lynn as Lead Guitar, Chirstopher McCoullough on Bass, Michael Dee on Rhythm Guitar, Patti Schwarz on drums, and Josh Williams as alternate Lead Guitar, are made mythically gothic in Doug Loynd’s costume design and are all strong musicians.

Pierce’s involvement is transparent, and that’s what makes his direction so good. Since the show seems to flow from the performers and from the moment, it’s hard to know who is responsible for what, so Pierce should receive as much praise as the rest.