Review: HAIR at Kokandy Productions

Imagine it, if you can: A historically unpopular war being fought across the globe without any clear end or goal in sight. Protests at home demanding racial and gender equity after centuries of injustice. A young generation struggling to find meaning and purpose after becoming disillusioned with the promises made to them by their kin and country.

I’m referring, of course, to the 1960s, that era of free love and revolutionary idealism that gave us the countercultural and culturally redefining musical Hair, now appearing in Chicago in our own time courtesy of the theatrical powerhouse Kokandy Productions. In fact, it seems like no better time to revisit Hair, if only so that we might better understand our own conflicted era by looking into a smoky mirror. In a press release from when the show was first announced, director Brennan Urbi said that he was looking forward to “how this iconic ‘60s score reverberates all the way to summer 2026.”

How disappointing, then, that—despite performances from a stellar and energetic young ensemble—this Hair is politically neutered and shaved clean of much of what made it such a provocative piece nearly sixty years ago. The production runs through September 13 at the Chopin Theatre in Wicker Park.

With music by Galt MacDermot and a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, Hair is less concerned with plot than it is with capturing the norm-shattering joy of a movement that was already in its decline by the time Hair premiered on Broadway in 1968. Early musical numbers play out like a series of vaguely connected skits, skewering taboos around sexuality, drugs, and religion. Insofar as there is a “story” in the traditional sense, it follows Tribe member Claude (Gavin Rhys) as he seeks a greater sense of purpose in his life. Does he follow the summons of his draft card and sacrifice his life for his country, earning the kind of glory and purpose that men have dreamed of for thousands of years? Or does he stay rooted in a community that, for all its love and support, lacks a clear sense of direction or meaning?

One of the central challenges of staging Hair is threading this needle between silliness and sincerity, between reveling in the power of protest and reflecting on its inadequacies, between the pressures of the past and the promises of the future. This is a challenge that Urbi’s directorial vision never quite overcomes. Those early, skit-like songs are rushed through without much in the way of a dramaturgical throughline, almost as though the creative team is embarrassed or uncertain of the material. For example, when the militant Black Panther Hud (a refreshingly cool if underutilized Joshua Emmanuel) rushes the stage and defiantly resituates himself among the racist epithets and tropes that have structured his life, a large curtain sweeps across the back wall announcing that “THIS IS A SATIRE.” This curtain remains in place throughout the remainder of the show, so it’s never quite clear if the satire in question is Hud’s song or the musical in its entirety or something else in between.

The set design by Eleanor Kahn, while fun and creative, also risks becoming another point of alienation. There are essentially two seating areas in the theatre for Hair: a collection of chairs and risers on the main playing area surrounding a central pit as well as more traditional theater seating, though the two areas are so widely separated by a large platform that I can’t help but wonder if the spectators in the auditorium had a very different experience of the show than those of us closer to the main action.

When it comes to the more traditional plot of the show, Urbi gives better evidence of his talents and abilities. The show opens with Claude snatching a draft card from the air just as the company emerges to announce the dawning of the revolutionary Age of Aquarius (led by Chosen Mitchell as a powerhouse Dionne). In Urbi’s rendition, Claude joins the Tribe as a means of avoiding the draft. And while this choice makes the musical’s ending more tragic (no spoilers, even after sixty years), it fails to explain how Claude already has such tight relationships with other Tribe members, including the wildly anarchic Berger (an explosively charismatic and immediately captivating Zac Richey) to the softer NYU student protester Sheila (Catherine Rodriguez O’Connor).

It doesn’t help that Rhys doesn’t quite achieve the charisma necessary to make Claude a compelling tragic figure. His emotional turmoil over his drafting into the Vietnam War never feels palpable, even in the infamous first act finale when the rest of the Tribe burns heir summons in defiance. However, his crystalline clear voice soars with energy in “I’ve Got Life” and the musical’s titular number (which is a welcome relief since its staging is otherwise unmemorable).

Richey and O’Connor make for the most dynamic pairing on the stage, representing the occasionally conflicting emotional and intellectual sides of the 60s youth protest movement. Richey’s Berger is so committed to a kind of unbridled expression of free love and excess that it becomes both thrilling and a little frightening when an undercurrent of anger suddenly bursts through. O’Connor, on the other hand, takes a gentler, but no less enthusiastic approach to the material. Her Sheila is the intellectual core of the Tribe and, fittingly, O’Connor’s voice is the powerful rallying cry around which so many of the other Tribe members gather. Entrusted with some of the musical’s greatest hits, O’Connor takes a familiar standard like “Good Morning Starshine” and gives it a renewed, hopeful energy through an a cappella arrangement that effectively makes the argument that sometimes the simplest approach to a number is the most effective (pyrotechnic music direction by Kara Olander).

Other standout performances include Nicki Rossi as a delightfully wacky and endearingly optimistic Jeanie and Stone TeSelle as the raunchy yet sweetly sensitive Woof, though it’s worth mentioning that much of the ensemble has an infectious energy that’ll have even the squarest theatregoer up on the feet during the curtain call.

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