Trigger Warning or Content Advisory for Hair?

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Re: "references in Hair to the people of India," there are actually at least three: "I've been to India / And saw the yogi light..." in "Donna," a depiction of Buddhist monks in the trip sequence in Act II which amounts to a caricature typical of the era that some today would regard as an insensitive portrayal, and a reference post-trip to Berger potentially hiding out in India and staying high forever (I admit to not knowing how someone would find that last one offensive, but it's the only other reference I can find).

As for content advisories, I have no problem with them. If we have a ratings system for films, and another one for television, and, for example, warnings in a live context about the use of strobe lighting and smoke-related effects, I see no reason not to acknowledge content that people consider problematic and give them full warning to get out or deal with it. If they stayed, and they sue, they can try if they like; I'm already covered legally with my posted notice, be it in printed matter or on some sort of notice board before one enters the venue.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Oh, and before I forget, though there is not an extensive history of it in productions of the show, it is the nature of Hair, though born in the Sixties, to live in the present, and, in its free form, to make reference to today, reinforcing the unfortunate truism that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

As far back as the short-lived Broadway revival in 1977, the posters in the protest rally have occasionally incorporated current references; said revival, for example, included "No Nukes Is Good Nukes," "Con Ed Goofed," "Save the Whales," topical references to the women's rights movement, and other slogans that would have made no -- or at least little -- sense to a playgoer in 1968.

(Indeed, the show's very first Off-Broadway revival in 1980 updated all of the topical references and set the show in the then-present. It was very well received, and played a command performance in front of 100,000 people on the Capitol steps in D.C.)

[MikeInTheDistrict]

There's also the entire "Be-In/Hare Krishna" sequence... I'm South Asian and Hair is one of my favorite musicals, but I do think that particular sequence (and the general co-option of Eastern religion by the 1960s counterculture, often bastardizing them as excuses to get high) merits discussion. It's an aspect of the hippie culture that has been discussed by a handful of people but as the population of Asians within the U.S. has been growing substantially over the last 50 years, will probably pick up salience more and more as we go forward into the next half century.

As for the content warning in the program, I don't see it as very different from the "notes from the director" essays that sometimes are featured in programs. Oftentimes, the essay is meant to contextualize the musical/play into its time period, comment on its relevance or ramifications for a modern audience, describe the approach of the present production, etc. I'd rather that than doing what I saw in my first production of Hair, a community college production in which a lot of material was cut.