HAIR revival

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:09am

We really need to have a HAIR revival on Broadway since the war in Iraq has so much similarities to the Vietnam war. But, to work they need to put it into to todays time so the audience can have more of a connection to the story and characters. And with theatre, there is always some sort of a suspension of disbelief, so they have can have it where the draft is still inacted.

[nodaybut2day_<32]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:11am

i agree Updated On: 1/20/07 at 11:11 AM

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:14am

I don't know. I am just saying that we need to have one.

Or even drop the draft entirely, and have it where there are a group of people protesting the war in Iraq and Claude is about to enlist in the Army and go to basic training, so he has "a night on the town" before he goes to training and meets up with Burger and the others at a rally and they take him on the journey through the musical.

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 11:14 AM

[TWSFan4Ever]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:15am

No, the original poster's just saying that if there was one coming, that's how it should be...i guess?

[StephenSondheimWHOO]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:23am

We definetly need a revival, but I don't know if they should adapt it.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:27am

A year or so a production of HAIR was done that attempted to update the show and make it a commentary on the Iraq war. HAIR author, Jim Rado initially praised the production, and it was thought it might have life elsewhere, but he changed his mind after some of the other creative team/original cast saw the production and felt it ultimately "wasn't true" to the spirit of the original show.

HAIR, which is a show I have always been fascinated by, is in kind of a bizarre situation right now. Jim Rado, who never really wrote anything of popularity after HAIR has never really let the property go. There have been endless re-writes over the years - most with the aim of keeping the show as some kind of "be-in" or "happening" like it was when it opened on Broadway in 1968.

That, of course, isn't going to work in this day and age. On Broadway, HAIR's book was largely incoherant - a splattering of topical phrases and snapshots of pop culture references - and that worked, because people understood the times and the attitudes HAIR was attempting to convey. It didn't have to explain the era, because audiences were firmly "in it."

But to try to make HAIR that same kind of experience today will not work. It seems self important. And there has been no production since the 70s that has been able to make HAIR work as anything other than a concert of some great music.

However...

I recently read a copy of the script for the production as it appeared at the Public Theatre, before Tom O'Horgan reconceived it for Broadway, and it was something of a revelation.

Here was a show with plot! With developed, conflicted young characters dealing with confusion over politics, sexuality, responsibility! A concrete story arc, complete with betrayal and disappointment.

In short - it was rather astonishing to realize that HAIR at the Public Theatre was a play with music.

I completely understand why HAIR was changed for Broadway in 1968. It was trying to break the mold of the book musical and was a very valid attempt at bringing the "East Village" experience, complete with an avant garde La Mama staging, to the masses on Broadway.

But, I think the only way HAIR could work on Broadway today (and I think it should be revived) is to go back to that Off Broadway script. To make the show not so much a "be-in" but an honest exploration of the conflict of the time. To give it a more traditional book structure that will show audiences a more realistic glimpse of the people and the conflicts that actually fueled the counter culture movement.

Because that is what modern audiences will be affected by.




Updated On: 1/20/07 at 11:27 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:28am

Oh yes, that would make total sense. All they have to do is set it today. And then all the hippies could sit around and Berger could try to convince Claude to burn his, um, his, er, his LIBRARY card! It would be simultaneously awesome and amazing.

Or, another way, would be to have the adult characters who are mocked in the original show for being Midwestern know-nothings be the only ones who care to take a stand to stop the war. You could have one, for instance, trying to lead a movement after she loses her son in Iraq. And instead of the young people rallying around her and fighting to stop the war, they could make fun of her and act bored when she tells them about the horrors her son went through and then they could sing songs about their iPods and debate the merits of the awesome and amazing American Idol contestants who DESERVE to be on Broadway!

[winston89]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:39am

The thing is that they tried numerous times to revive it and it looks like it won't be happining. I think if I recall correctly that they attempted to revive it 10 times over the years. Don't hold your breath if your waiting for a revival of Hair.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:42am

You can't remove the draft from HAIR -- it destroys the entire point of the show and makes it a different show entirely. Not to mention, with co-writer Ragni long dead there's NO WAY such a revision would ever be made.

Why not have someone write a NEW show for 2007 rather than trying to somehow update the quintessential 1960s Viet Nam era show, with its 60s rock score and which personified every aspect of the very ethos of the youth culture of that time period -- the drug culture, the free love, the anti-war sentiment, the racial tensions of the still burgeoning civil rights movement (and the riots burning cities), the look, the fashions, the slang........

You'd have to change every single line of that show (other than maybe a half dozen or so about the war) to even come close to updating it to the present and you'd still have an anachronistic mess on your hands since kids today are NOTHING like kids 40 years ago (Crystal Meth is a VERY differnt drug than LSD, which few kids today know anything about; no social consciousness or concern about war, race or anything else other than their iPods and X-boxes; no anti-authoritarianism -- these kids WANT to be authority; no antimaterialism -- today's kids WANT every new toy and fancy car and expensive trinket that comes on the market; no long hair etc......)

Leave HAIR alone and have someone write a new show. Maybe Duncan Sheik can work it into his schedule.........

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 11:42 AM

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:43am

Namo, stop being a bitch (said in the most respectful way, of course)

Bennett--I wasn't implying that they follow a script like the original where it is just a "snapshot of pop culture of the time" but have it a real drama where there is internal conflict with Claude where he feels it is his duty to go to war and defend our country but at the same time, realize that this war was built on lies and deciet and has a struggle with himself on what is the "right" thing to do, etc.


What I was saying is that there could be rally to try to stop Bush from sending more troops to Iraq that Berger and others are a part of. Claude, a gentleman who is about to go to basic training to be in the Army (who could be a strong supporter for the war), could go to Washington or New York to have a "night on the town" before going to basic training and he meets Berger and the group and they take him on a little adventure through the city and tries to convince Claude that the war is wrong and he does not need to go in the army and support this war and blah blah blah. At the end, he decides that it is his duty as an American to go into the Army and he gets diployed over there and dies and Berger and the others meet at his grave to say goodbye and sings "Flesh Failures/Let the Sunshine in."

Updated On: 1/20/07 at 11:43 AM

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:46am

Okay Margo, I understand what you are saying.

Well, instead of reviving HAIR to fit the times, someone needs to write a HAIR for this generation and this time, as a reflection on this war.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:50am

Spider - good theatre is unto itself a commentary. You don't need to update HAIR to directly be about the Iraq war for modern audiences to see the correlation.

Like I said, a lot of the text for the Off Broadway script for HAIR from 1967 actually deals with the internal conflict of young people dealing with war in a way that much more echoes our current political climate than the show did as it appeared on Broadway in 1968.

[Amneris]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:51am

has anyone ever heard "Rainbow", "Hair's" sister musical? It's like rado was living on clouds and moonbeans and a lot of acid when he wrote this score. There is one song called "rainbow land" or something that is like Willy Wonka Umpa Loompa on every drug possible.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:52am

True, true. Well, nevermind the original post. What exactly was the original off-broadway script like?

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 11:54am

Rado has been re-tooling "RAINBOW" for about 30 years. I think the newest version of it is called BILLY EARTH.

Oh, and somebody PM'd me about this: No, the script at the Public Theatre is NOT the same as the paperback script that was released in 1969, though it is certainly closer to that than what was seen at the Biltmore.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:06pm

"The Age of Aquarius" for the Age of Entitlement?


Yeah... sure... that could work.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:08pm

I said nevermind about the original post. I was watching the movie and was thinking about it. I was wrong, so . . . it's cool

[BS]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:13pm

I just saw a production in Oslo, Norway. I wasn't of course expecting much, but it actually blew me away. It starts off with the entire cast in front of computer monitors but quickly segways back into the 60's. The cast was super talented and the staging extremely inovative (although the costumes did not represent the times properly). The 8 piece band kicked ass with the music. It was certainly much more entertaining than the Encore remount. And most importantly there was a real freshness about it. And the parallels with today's political environment really connect. I sat there thinking, I wish there were some producers (from the States) in the audience. Check out the link if you can read it.
Hair in Norway

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:14pm

spiderdj82 --- I'm not shooting you down. It's depressing to me that this show won't work anymore. I was in a terrific production of Hair staged by its original choreographer Julie Arenal. It was an incredible experience... but that was also about 25 years ago.

It was "retro" even then.

Another (gulp) quarter century has passed, and the detachment from its original intent and its original sentiments is too big a gap to bridge today.

I find that sad.

So it's not "you idiot, how could you even THINK of such a thing!" it's more like "no way, not with the iPod babies." They'll connect to it as much as they do to a restoration comedy.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:14pm

The Off Broadway script is a lot more character driven - one of the driving conflicts is the love triangle between Shelia, Berger and Claude which becomes symbolic of the conflict of the early counter culture experience - there is a much greater sense of the weight of "traditional American family values" on the characters' shoulders and the freedom, fear and confusion about rebuking those values.

Shelia loves Berger. Claude loves Shelia. The night before the draft, Berger coerces Shelia into sleeping with Claude (she is a virgin) - and ironically the song "Easy to be Hard" is sung by Berger and the Tribe not as a direct protest to the war, but as a sort of peer pressure rally ("How can people be so heartless, how can people be so cruel") to convince Shelia to bed Claude.

Claude is much more childlike in the Off Broadway script. After they have sex, he sings a song called EXANIPLANATOOCH which is basically a very simplistic little boys view of a perfect universe, and we see in Shelia's reaction that she is moved by this young man, that perhaps, all too late, her feelings have been misdirected.

Claude leaves to go the army and Shelia sings a song called THE CLIMAX - a sort of ironic, angry, self deprecating anthem that of course plays on the loss of her virginity, but seems to echo the futility of the war - and perhaps more wisely, the futility of the counter culture movement.

Claude goes to war - his death is not expressly stated, but is implied by the words spoken by his "parents" - actually played by Adult Actors Off Broadway who speak with un sentimental, unemotional reason that his loss is a small price to pay for the preservation of the "American Way of Life."

The tribe dissipates and the final image on the stage is a bunch of wind up toy tanks firing at each other.

A lot of is brilliant - and hard to describe. The biggest change is the tone - there is a real sense of loss - of innocence, of Americana and a sense of frustration - a knowledge that everything is eventually going to be lost - our American way of life - and the Hippie Movement.

The Off Broadway script shows a wonderful level of political awareness that was dropped for Broadway.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:15pm

BS---The music ALWAYS works with this show.


The show itself does not.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:19pm

Wow, MB. That sounds great.

Twelvy--I understand. It's fine!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:24pm

When I said you were wrong you called me a bitch. If being a bitch is a crime let me be guilty.

"Why can't people hear their iPods?
'stead of hangin' up on Iraq?
Easy to be numb
Easy to stay dumb

"Especially people who care about Idol
Spoon fed nothing by Old Rupert Murdoch
Let's all sing 'Proud to be American'
How about we debate a belt
A big loud belllllllllt?

"Why should we care about some war?
When we have so much to buy?
It's easier to be numb
Easy to stay dumb"

Now that I think of it, it'd work well.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:31pm

It wasn't that you said I was wrong, it was the way you said it. But, let's hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" and lets "Let the Sunshine In"

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 12:33pm

No one's picking on you, Spider. It's a great score that most of us really love -- probably still the best rock score every written for the theatre -- and it's still constantly being staged all over the country by amateur groups and colleges (NYU just did it again a couple of months ago). The Actor's Fund concert a couple of years ago was a huge success. It's no wonder that there have been so many attempts over the years to try to to find a way to bring it back to Broadway, but the show is so much an animal OF its time that it's become clear that taking it out of 1968 simply doesn't work.

I think that a really bold, innovative director with a great visual sense could probably find a way to stage it and make it into a thrillingly theatrical experience (I've always thought that the diffuse, fragmentary nature of the book might lend itself nicely to multimedia presentation with projections and film intercut with the live action on stage). Leave it in 1968, but use 21 century stage craft and visual techiques to enhance the experience for contemporary audiences (and disguise some of the gaping holes in the plot and character development). Just putting a bunch of hippies on stage might look a little silly to today's audiences if simply presented naturalistically, but setting the entire show into a sort of LSD-fueled dreamscape could make for quite an interesting conceit.

But, hey, who knows if that would work either.