While sitting waiting in row T of the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, CA for the 2009 Tony Winner for Best Broadway Revival, Hair to begin to flow one had to laugh at a glaring observation: the people old enough in the audience to remember this play's significance didn't have much left -- hair, that is. I was there with Heather, my 27-year-old niece, who desperately wanted to see a generation's statement against an unjust war. Both she and I often discuss the idea that there is no such representation, no truly great commercial and critical successes today about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan just to name a few issues. The arts from 2001 on have not tapped in to the anti-war sentiment, the progressive culture, the division and absurdity that defined the last decade in ways previous generations of artists have done, at least not yet. And certainly not like "Hair."
It's 1967. Kids fresh out of high school are burning their draft cards, refusing to give in to "the man" and fight their "unjust war of aggression." Sound familiar? It's about hippies, peace, free love, drugs, turning on, tuning out, it's about people referring to each other as brother, as sister, as cousin, as family and about a generation of older Americans that just can't understand why their kids don't want to march off to war and serve their country as they did in WWII. And it's about music, joy and audience interaction.
Hair, real hair, long hair, was a symbol of rebellion. I was only five in 1967 but even I knew that. My sister, who was 12 then, was starting to bring those "long haired hippie freaks" around the house (13 and 14 year old boys -- oh my!). Over the next few years, when she was 16, she would marry a soldier from Ft. Hood, Texas, where we lived (1973 was a different time and she was a flower child indeed) and I would see first hand soldiers and veterans as well as the flower children. I was not old enough to be one of them, but I was young enough to be influenced by them and their music and styles. Long hair was rebellion. It was a way to tell the military F! You! It was a way to tell your parent or society that you weren't going to conform, that you were an individual (even though it was a trend in retrospect)...at least that's what I heard from my sister and her friends. It wasn't a style, it was a statement. And the play, which debuted off Broadway (in a disco at one point) in 1967 and then on Broadway in 1968 found a way to not only make those statements entertaining but crafted songs that would become anthems of the 1960's and 1970s Peace movement.
But would it be relevant in 2011?
Yes, actually, more relevant, more groundbreaking, and possibly more controversial now than when it debuted in 1967. "Hair" was written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado with music by Galt MacDermot. Rado and Ragni were actors and they began writing the play in 1964 as sort of an autobiography. Rado aligned himself with Claude the more thoughtful romantic of the play while Ragni was more the extroverted Berger of the two. The rest of the characters came from kids they saw each day in the East Village of New York, their own friends or family. Rado told the Los Angeles Times on July 31, 2008 "We put the drama between us on stage, we had a passionate friendship and it made for great material," he stated.
The 2011 "Hair" features Steel Burkhardt as Berger and Paris Remillard as Claude, leader of the tribe of rag tag hippies out to protest the war and declare their independence. Burkhardt's Berger is the puppeteer, the ringleader, the fun, the soul and fire of the group, while Remillard's Claude is the heart and sanity of the piece, and the one that pays the ultimate price for it. Both actors enjoy the roles, and the entire ensemble, a great deal. For the actors, this play totally breaks the third wall, where the audience is invited to be a member of the tribe, to participate in the Be-In, to sing along and be involved; To be active, to be present. That might present a challenge to some, but the entire cast of "Hair" thrives in the setting, from the powerhouse opening vocals of Phyre Hawkins with the anthemic "Aquarius" to the harmonizing of the entire cast on the closing "Let the Sun Shine In" led by Burkhardt.
One surprise was the comic relief by Josh Lamon, who not only plays a member of the tribe and straight laced father but has a great comedic turn as a inquisitive woman (?) who nearly stops the show.
A group of four 60+ year old patrons were seated in front, and at intermission (right before I met Noah Wyle, oh ya!) they asked me "are you enjoying it?"
"Yes, greatly," I responded, "why, shouldn't I be?"
"Well, the original was so much better, the staging, the whole thing was just...different...better," they commented as they gathered their coats.
"Or was it the time, were you different?" I asked.
"Good question, I guess we were," they concluded as they put on their jackets to leave and "be home at a decent hour."
And it's true, this "Hair" is different than its predecessors. There's nudity, but not nearly as gratuitous as in many productions I've seen since the late 1970s, when I first saw the play. And it certainly has a big budget, slickly produced theatrical feel to it, not the rough-around-the-edges rebellious almost anarchical spirit of some productions past. But to say it has lost any of its relevance, its passion, its joy and spirit is to miss the entire experience and is more the fault of the theatre goer and not the production. Because this production hits on all the right notes and still evokes the pain, the desperation and yet the promise and hope of a generation that wanted to change the world, and for a time, did.
And in today's world of two occupations in the Middle East, of a culture of censorship and prudishness where many of the songs in the play like "Black Boys" or "Sodomy" couldn't even be performed on network TV or radio in most communities and where the pro-drug message and pro-sex message is seen more controversial today than in the 1960s it's almost frightening to see how far we have not come since 1967; in fact, in many ways we've regressed from that time socially and never fulfilled the promise and hopes of the Baby Boomers, hippies and youth of then or now.
Perhaps the new era doesn't need a new musical to explain the frustrations, the fears, the hopes of the youth of today; perhaps it already has it in "Hair." These themes are tried and true and the cast performs with such conviction and joy it's a night of theatre anyone 16 or 70 can enjoy and get something from making it an enduring piece of musical theatre and as relevant today as ever.
Go to BroadwayLA.org for more information on the play or tickets through January 23, 2011.
To hear or read more from Karel go to TheKarelShow.com