When Hedwig and the Angry Inch premiered in 1998 at the small Jane Street Theatre in Manhattan’s West Village, the transgender rights movement had little of its current visibility or momentum. But this remarkable punk-rock musical, created by John Cameron Mitchell (book) and Stephen Trask (music and lyrics), was strikingly prescient in its depiction of gender fluidity and queer sexuality. Hedwig morphs from a “girly boy” in East Berlin to a transgender rocker in the U.S. and, ultimately, a genderqueer synthesis of both.

The musical became a phenomenon, playing for two years in the Village with Mitchell and other headliners as Hedwig, and generating numerous productions, from Brazil to Japan, including a Tony-winning Broadway revival in 2014 starring Neil Patrick Harris. Mitchell directed a film adaptation in 2001, leading an expanded cast from the two-person stage musical, nabbing awards at its Sundance Film Festival premiere. Passionate enthusiasts of the show — so-called Hedheads — sprouted everywhere.

And now Adam and Ben Berry’s Peregrine Theatre Ensemble, which used to import young theater talent to Provincetown to perform in musicals all summer long at the Provincetown Schools’ Fishermen Hall, has re-emerged after a four-year Covid blackout with a new local production of Hedwig. Two young stars from Michigan, Alec Diem and Ash Moran, give knockout performances as Hedwig and Yitzhak (Hedwig’s hubby), respectively, offering Provincetown audiences a kind of drag theater experience that goes way beyond saucy humor.

The story of Hedwig is a bit convoluted and not always easy to discern on first viewing. It is told through songs performed in a concert by Hedwig and her band, the Angry Inch, taking place ostensibly on the stage before you. Even so, the chronology they describe extends from the 1960s through the 1990s. Topical references to the app Grindr and other untimely developments are injected into this production by director-choreographer Kyle Pleasant (a Peregrine vet), which may confuse the storyline further, but are meant to connect you to what’s happening in a very direct way.

You learn that Hedwig was born Hansel Schmidt before the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, and her single mom — Dad is an American serviceman who has left them — settles in East Germany. As a womanly young man, Hansel falls for an African American soldier, who agrees to be married and move the couple to the U.S., but only if Hansel goes through gender reassignment surgery. The surgery is botched, however, leaving Hedwig (Hansel’s mother’s name, which Hansel then adopts) with a vaginal suture that fuses as it heals and the titular “angry” inch for a penis.

After they settle in Kansas, Hedwig’s military husband leaves her for a young boy, and she turns herself into a singer-songwriter, calling her band the Angry Inch. She falls for a young Christian named Tommy Speck, the older brother of a child she babysits, and they become a musical team — she dubs him Tommy Gnosis — until he is shocked by her compromised genitalia and steals her songs to go off on his own. Tommy becomes a huge punk sensation, which galls Hedwig. She marries Yitzhak and, along with the Angry Inch, follows Tommy’s touring band around the country to reclaim her artistic legacy. In the stage musical, Tommy, like all the characters described and quoted by Hedwig and Yitzhak, is not actually present. (In the movie, Mitchell made all the characters manifest.)

Which brings us to the production at hand. While Hedwig tells her story, her identity comes undone, and she transforms (in the final song “Midnight Radio”) into a merged Hedwig-Tommy persona, allowing Yitzhak, in drag, to assume his own transformation. This completes Hedwig’s search for a soulmate, outlined earlier in the song “The Origin of Love,” derived from an ancient Greek myth of split identities and genders.

Binary crossovers dominate the story: East and West Germany, male and female identity, husbands and wives. It is the essence of Hedwig — its exploration, struggle, and redemption.

To make it come to life, the Peregrine production has some noteworthy assets. The two leads, Diem and Moran, are vocal powerhouses, and their performances are imbued with multiple shades of suffering and self-awareness. They are a revelatory pair, both of them actor friends in the Michigan theater scene. And the physical production is a queer-punk kaleidoscope of images, props, and music. A live cameraman, Will Oxtoby, deftly hovers around the performers, and the images he shoots are projected around them, as if to highlight the fragmentation of their identity and how we see them. The effect is eerie.

Pleasant and his team — scenic designer Thea Goldman, costume designer Seth Bodie, lighting designer Michael Clark-Wonson, projection and video designers Kathy Wittman and Justin Lahue, sound designer Chris Page, and makeup designer Chad Hayduk — expressively envelop the audience in Hedwig’s world and mindset.

But the true heart of Hedwig is the show’s amazing songs. There’s a glam rock and heavy metal edge to them and a poetic punk aesthetic. They embody the queercore revolution that exploded during the ’80s club scene. In the Peregrine production, musical director Yaron Spiwak and his onstage band (Cliff Letsche on bass, Keb Hutchings on guitar, Rikki Bates on drums) veritably rock the house. They make a memorable evening sing — a 90-minute, intermission-less concert that you won’t want to miss.

Give ’em an Inch

The event: Peregrine Theatre Ensemble’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch
The time: Through Aug. 31, Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
The place: Fishermen Hall, 12 Winslow St., Provincetown (enter at rear of Provincetown Schools, Prince Street parking lot)
The cost: $65–$110, including fees, at PeregrineTheatre.com or 774-538-9084