HAIR revival

i agree

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

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

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

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.

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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."

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

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.

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

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


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

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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

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.

Wow, MB. That sounds great.

Twelvy--I understand. It's fine!

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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"

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