HAiR: The Intellectual Conversation Thread — Page 2

I enjoyed the revival. Hair was the first "adult" musical (non-Disney, non-Julie Andrews...) that really grabbed me and I used to listen to the OCR over and over again as a teen. As a result, I think I would have been hard-pressed NOT to enjoy the revival.

That said, my husband walked out wondering if all the interaction and the crazy fun meant that most of the younger people completely missed (or dismissed) any of the more serious statements such as the anti-war sentiment or the social commentary on hypocrisy of "Easy to Be Hard" or the statements around racism or environmentalism etc. So much of the commentary on this board *has* been around, uh, the nudity and the audience interaction that it was hard for me to completely dismiss his observation as completely false.

HEST, I tend to agree with your thoughts.

However, I'm sure MANY of the original audiences reacted the same way. You can HEAR the messages and even believe in them without taking action or it changing you in any way.


In general, I feel that the young audience members view theater as something to be "a part of" instead of experience. All the talk about SD events, and FB contacts affect how they feel about the show. Add to it the importance of whether or not they will sit in good seats for interaction. (And don't get me wrong, Will Swenson laying on top of me -- as much as one can in a theater seat -- ADDED to the performance and the experience, but I wouldn't have felt 'cheated' if it happened to someone else.)

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I wonder if anything about it was thought to be intellectual at the time?

Probably not. I think that's something that comes with historical perspective, after the impact is obvious, if you're literally talking "intellectual." Granted, the fact that it was a huge departure from the form seems pretty immediate, but I wonder that, too; how much of the idea of it as a revolution was present to people who were seeing it, and how much of that only came later? Although, knowing what I do, my gut assumption would be that it was more about the sheer immediacy of the piece than, "Wow, this is going to change musical theater forever." I think that's so built-in now that we kind of take it for granted. I'm sure some people thought that because historians and critics were part of the picture, too, but overwhelmingly I would guess it was visceral. And, see, this is the kind of stuff I would love to hear from people who were there, because I wasn't even born.

Hest, I think your husband is right. I don't want to generalize because I don't believe the generalization to be true, but in some cases, I do think he's right. Unfortunately.

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Updated On: 8/24/09 at 01:38 PM

In general, I feel that the young audience members view theater as something to be "a part of" instead of experience. All the talk about SD events, and FB contacts affect how they feel about the show. Add to it the importance of whether or not they will sit in good seats for interaction. (And don't get me wrong, Will Swenson laying on top of me -- as much as one can in a theater seat -- ADDED to the performance and the experience, but I wouldn't have felt 'cheated' if it happened to someone else.)

I think this is partly true, but at the same time are people seeing the show 50 times to get their hair played with? If they are I feel very sorry for them, but this kind of nonsense will always exist.

This show seems to have such an effect on young people (myself included) because it got me in the know about Broadway Impact, and going out to fight much like the characters in the show.

So well said. I agree 100%. I think that's one of the things that makes it so moving; we know what's going to happen to these people. They don't. And that's so sad. We feel sorry for them, in a way, I think, and also sad to know that ultimately, they won't really succeed. It's hard to watch them be up there so full of life and love, while having the knowledge of the possible things that may happen to them in the future, even past the risk of being killed at war. I find that that's a really powerful aspect of a lot of plays that were written to be contemporary and then brought back decades later. There's a dramatic irony that wasn't written into them, but becomes quite dark and tragic.

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I've always interpreted it as Claude just wanting to be something he's not and somewhere he isn't. As well as being subversive (saying he'd rather be British instead of American would have, of course, caused his parents to go nuts).

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I assumed it was Claude's alter ego of sorts

Claude states it in the show, Diane Paulus has talked ab out it: Claude wants desperately to be invisible. Hanging with the hippies hides him from mainstream society, pretending to be a brit, hides him from his reality.

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Claude is torn between so many competing factors - his family, his country, his friends - that he's been unable to construct or realize his own identity. Hence the safety he finds in invisibility and assimilation. This becomes especially apparent (and poignant) in the second act - until "Where Do I Go?", Claude is (intentionally) upstaged by Berger's charisma, but the second act brings his conflict and uncertainties to the forefront. I love the moment when "What a Piece of Work Is Man" segues into "How Dare They Try." It's heartbreaking when all of Claude's illusions and hesitations come crashing down around him, and he knows that choice (one type of conformity for another) is imminent.

I was talking with a friend about the show, and he felt that this revival lacked the important political element essential to Hair's significance. Essentially, he argued that the production hadn't explicated the political resonance of "peace and love" as a philosophy. He went on to say that the reverence with which the cast and much of the audiences approached the show precluded some of its veracity, commodifying the show as a product for entertainment and consumption. I'm don't agree that it's a meretricious revival missing its substance, but he's getting at what Hest and Emcee are saying - even if the material's there, a lot of the audiences are missing the more serious aspects. People are allowing themselves to commodify the piece, absorbing the most accessible elements and not taking the time to look deeper into the show's message. The politics of it especially. That being said, the Broadway Impact offshoot is interesting (and awesome) because the message of the show is being applied in an active, practical way that inspires fans to join a movement. So even if some of Hair's finer points are being missed, the show and its themes have nonetheless generated activism and awareness through its most accessible and on the surface themes of peace/love/freedom.

I'm reading the posts on this thread and a lot of them are actually mildly (and unintentionally) offensive. Why is it such a bad thing to have fun and talk about silly things like Gavin Creel's dog, understudies, fun songs, audience interaction stories, ect...? Are we really supposed to apologize for having a thread where people can kick back and talk about a show that they really admire? Who is to say that people posting 'the silly stuff' don't see all the 'smart stuff' that HAIR (or HAiR...whatever you want to call it) has to offer? On the BWW board, people have a tendency to think that if something is fun...it's bad.

I'm willing to participate in this thread as much as I can because I agree with the idea that HAIR has a lot to offer other than nudity and cast interaction. I enjoy talking about the deeper aspects in HAIR. It's very hard for me though, because despite knowing this show back and front...I still haven't seen it. That day will come. My plans to go to see HAIR are almost final and I'll be able to participate in this thread even more...but there is no reason criticize people for having a little bit of fun. HAIR has lots of different elements to it that are easy to catch, and one of them is being joyful to be joyful. Why should anyone feel guilty for having fun?

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No one was saying that you couldn't discuss the antics and actors. But whoever decided to start this was tired of more thoughtful conversations NOT developing on the other threads. There was NO insult intended.

Just questions and talking.

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Don't you worry Jazzy, I don't believe anyone was insulting us. Like everyone said, there's nothing wrong with it, we just apparently needed it separated.