Hair, Naked on Broadway

You would think the revival of “Hair,” the 1967 rock musical, so ecstatic in the open air at The Public Theater’s Delacorte Theater in Central Park last summer could not be contained indoors--like shoehorning back the contents of Pandora’s Box. Think again. At its new venue, the Al Hirschfeld Theater, the characters cavort and cajole their in-your-face performances using the walls as a springboard. As they sing, dance, climb, jump, and play, these hippies have not lost their exuberance for life: on Friday night, the frenetic hottie Berger (Will Swenson) in a leather fringed g-string did his lap sitting routine in the audience with his feet up—as it turned out-- on Joy Behar’s shoulder. This play so epitomizes the art of engagement: cast members hand out daisies, hugs, and flyers for a be-in, and old fart or not, be there or be square. Performances by Bryce Ryness as the Mick Jagger vamping Woof, Theo Stockman as Hubert and Tribe member at large, Kacie Sheik as pregnant Jeanne, and Sasha Allen as Dionne stand out in an altogether stand out cast. Kudos to Michael McDonald for his costuming, Karole Armitage’s choreography, and to the outstanding band featuring Bernard Purdie on drums. Surprisingly, Hair’s central anti-war story is still fresh, especially in the talented hands of director Diane Paulus, with her trademark commitment to breaking down the wall between performer and spectator. When Sheila (the excellent Caissie Levy) who loves both Berger and Claude (a fine Gavin Creel) says she’s been at a demonstration in Washington and everybody was there, mentioning beat poet Allen Ginsberg, she speaks to the go-for-broke candor and nakedness of that time, a vulnerability that makes the Tribe’s Woodstock evoking nakedness on stage at the end of Act 1 so poignant. “Where do I go?” sings Claude and while the draft card-burning ritual does not have the urgency now as it did last summer when the Bush years’ lingering Iraq policy pushed many young people into a seemingly endless war, with the seismic shift to Obama, we still yearn for love, spirit, meaning—with no easy answers.

      

On opening night, the company spilled into the cavernous Gotham, a converted bank on Herald Square: Tovah Feldshuh, superb in her new play “Irena’s Vow,” Stephen Daldry, Martha Plimpton, Audra McDonald, and Tommy Tune were some of the attendees. Appropriately for this show that launched the jean industry into its decades long wardrobe staple status, sponsor Levi Strauss set up a lounge with “Hair” inscribed pillows and lava lamps. “Hair”’s picture of an edenic world is infectious. May I recommend that when these flower children come round to pull you onstage in the finale. Go. Do it.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

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