Yeah, I'm not sure where the insane asylum thing came in. The conceit of the production was that in our times, a shaved head is more subversive than long hair, so the entire cast shaved their heads, male and female alike. The set and (if I remember correctly, although it was threeish years ago) the costumes were all white, with lots of colored light effects. The nudity was much more played up than in your average production, I believe in more than one scene.
All in all, I don't think the specific ideas or changes they enacted really added up to much more than doing the show a bit more... traditionally, if you can use that word to describe Hair, would have done. That said, I can still remember how powerfully the show ended, with the curtain closing right over the cast still extremely angrily singing.
"Why, I make more money than... than... than Calvin Coolidge! PUT TOGETHER!"
~Lina Lamont
My name wasn't, isn't, and will never be Scott.
