Review - Hair: Two Nobodies In New York

Sometime after Betty and Adolph and long before Hunter and Jeff, another pair of New York actors wrote a musical with juicy roles for themselves and achieved their dream of taking it to Broadway. Not exactly hippies, but inspired by the dramatic possibilities of the flower power movement, bookwriter/lyricists Gerome Ragni">Gerome Ragni and James Rado">James Rado devised a story where the former played Berger, a high school student and de facto leader of a tribe of Manhattan hippies, and the latter was his newly-drafted buddy Claude, who can't decide if he should join his friends in burning their draft cards and, if necessary, fleeing to Canada, or comply with his parents' wishes that he go fight in Vietnam for his country.

With clean-cut suburban dad Galt MacDermot">Galt MacDermot composing a score that fused rock with funk, rockabilly and showtune, Hair premiered in 1967 with a 6-week stint as Joseph Papp's first Public Theater production and played briefly at a discotheque named Cheetah before making it to Broadway's Biltmore. With more songs that have nothing to do with the plot than a typical 1930s Cole Porter musical and such thinly-developed characters that one of a cynical nature might refer to them as The Flesh Failures, Hair, in its time resembled the kind of rebellious vaudeville that recalled Marx Brothers anarchy at its most political. (Although I doubt if Groucho ever said to an audience member, "Hey lady, will you hold my pants for me?" Then again...) But its playful comedy, as in a sweet ditty about air pollution, an angry list song about every derogatory name you could call a black person and a biting patriotic salute by the good citizens of Selma, Alabama, was balanced by gut-twisting and controversial moments like the public burning of draft cards by scared, but committed young men, a horrify drug-induced war fantasy and a rock funereal dirge that leads to an anguished plea for hope, "Let The Sun Shine In."

Today, once again being presented by The Public, but this time at Central Park's Delecorte Theatre (and with a revised script adapted from the original Off-Broadway text and the significantly different Broadway one), Hair is both an exhilarating reminder of a time when an optimistic youth believed it could bring peace and love to a violent world gone mad and a cute nostalgia trip where grandparents can take the kids to see what life was like when they were their age and tap their feet to catchy songs with lyrics like, "Black boys are delicious," "Masturbation can be fun," and (the positively brilliant) "Answer my weary query, Timothy Leary, dearie."

Director Diane Paulus' production, choreographed with more spirit than invention by Karole Armitage, may lack surprises, but there's plenty of fun and poignancy in her straightforward mounting that, despite some truly Moving Pictures, could stand a little more visual variety its group scenes. The loose structure of Hair's often unrelated line-up of songs and routines can get a little tiresome by the middle of the second act without a director who can firmly hold our attention and keep the audience from checking their programs to see how many songs there are until, "Good Morning, Starshine."

But the summer's night sky over set designer Scott Pask's simple grassy stage, a little worse for wear with dirt patches, with music director Nadia DiGiallonardo's 12-piece band rocking out upstage, is a downright magical setting for this festive evening of musical ritual. The knockout cast sounds beautifully blended in their full-company vocals of shimmering compositions like the mystically moody "Aquarius" (led with the creamy-toned warmth of Patina Renea Miller), the merrily mod "Manchester, England," the grimly poetic "The Flesh Failures" and the wildly exuberant title song.

The uncomplicated naiveté of sweet-singing Jonathan Groff gives Claude a puppy-dog appeal that makes it unthinkable to hand a gun to this innocent and tell him to kill. The charismatic Will Swenson gives Berger the confident swagger of an adolescent who hasn't accepted boundaries. One of the musical's most noticeable weaknesses is the underdeveloped relationship between Berger and his college activist girlfriend Sheila, the only member of the tribe actually doing things to try and change the country for the better. (After returning from the legendary anti-war protest where demonstrators tried to levitate The Pentagon, Shelia excitedly tells her friends, "You shoulda been there." She's right.) Caren Lyn Manuel gives the role a healthy dose of maturity and spunk and puts strong pipes behind a thrilling "Easy To Be Hard" when Berger's immaturity threatens their relationship.

Fine turns are also delivered by Bryce Ryness as Woof, who denies being gay despite a sexual obsession with Mick Jagger; Daurius Nichols, whose Hud relishes the uneasy effect his black skin has on white people; Kacie Sheik, who gets the biggest laugh of the night as the slightly air-headed Jeanie and the pairing of Megan Lawrence and Andrew Kober as Claude's antagonistic but genuinely loving parents. Kober also scores with his rendition of "My Conviction," an anthropological waltz he chirps as a character named after Margaret Mead.

The tricky part about Hair, and this unavoidable in just about any theatre piece that is so of its time, is re-creating the sense of urgency that made its plea for peace so immediate 40 years ago. Sure, you can say that once again we're in the middle of a seemingly endless and unpopular war, but it's just not the same without the threat of forced military service looming over every young American male's head. And with nudity, cursing, racial epitaphs and distrusting the government so much more a part of our popular culture today than 40 years ago, the only thing left in Hair to shock a contemporary audience is the sight of a pregnant woman smoking pot.

But such matters are probably of little concern to the throngs who joyously accept the company's invitation to sing and dance with them on stage for an extended celebration at the show's conclusion. Yesterday's perceived threat to society is once again today's family entertainment, and I'm sure the cute little girl who was happily bouncing on an actor's shoulders during the band's final blasts on the night I attended had a swell time.

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