REVIEW: Australian Shakespeare Company Presents A New Tech Enhanced Staging Of HAIR THE TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL

Friday 19th June 2026, 7:30pm, Theatre Royal Sydney (In Season show reviewed)

Almost 60 years after its off-Broadway debut, HAIR THE TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL is both a time capsule of a different time and a reminder that there are still things that need changing.  Presented by the Australian Shakespeare Company, Glenn Elston and Greg Hocking in association with Trafalgar Entertainment, Gerome Ragni, James Rado (both Book and lyrics) and Galt MacDermot’s (music) musical that caused controversy when it was first staged is presented for a 21st century audience.

The premise of HAIR THE TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL is that a “tribe” of long haired hippies living in New York City in the mid 1960’s are sharing their experience as part of the emerging counterculture and opposition to the Vietnam war, particularly the government drafting young men to serve.  Predominantly a song cycle with a loose through plot, Director Glenn Elston has opted to lean into the “rock” element of the genre, seeking to present this as more a rock concert rather than really taking the audience into the characters bohemian world.  While there is still the core characters of Berger (Maxwell Simon), Sheila (Elizabeth Brennan) and Claude (Alex Cooper) and significant personalities in the community of Jeanie (Rosie Meader), Woof (Jackson McGovern), Hud (Tane Williams-Accra, Tina (Phoenix Jackson Mendoza) and Leonard (Maverick Newman) the delivery, particularly with the large ensemble, can often feel more focused on the song rather than the storytelling or emotional connection for both the performers to the work and the audience to the story. 

The set design reinforces Elston’s vision of a concert with the lighting and sound gantries of rock concerts dominating the stage.  Additional rigging ladders and a mobile platform provide vertical variety.  Archive footage, animation and scene setting images are projected on to a large circular screen within more metal framework.  Most songs are delivered with microphones rather than relying on the body mics that each performer is rigged with.  Kaspa’s costuming is inspired by the mix of bright synthetics, natural fibres, recycled and upcycled of the 1960s though there feels like there is an element of contemporary kids trying dress ups rather than a transportation back to the era. 

While there may be audience members that may have seen earlier stagings and may have personal memories of the era that are connecting with the nostalgia the music evokes for them, this production generally sits awkwardly between a concert and a story.  With the state of world politics, environment and social issues, HAIR has the potential to be used to reinforce the progression, and lack thereof, but the underlying rage and rebellion that Ragni, Rado and MacDermot and their first casts that were creating the work in the midst of the Anti-Vietnam war movement would have expressed doesn’t seem to be replicated.  The fact that the work was grounded in a range of protest causes seems lost in the execution as performers deliver songs with big bright smiles in a way that is not expressing any underlying irony or deeper understanding and interpretation.  While the music is rock, the lyrics are musical theatre and Ragni and Rado’s words are important to the piece and for much of the work the sound balance and the clarity of the work is such that the messages are lost in favour of the music.

This work needs a deeper level of connection as the elements that were once shocking to audiences in the 60’s and 70’s like the profanity, expression of sexuality and sexual exploration, drug use and  nudity are almost de rigueur in contemporary theatre, particularly for those that regularly see a range of live performance.  While Maxwell Simon, Tane Williams-Accra and Maverick Newman provide some great moments where they seek to find humour and deliver good characterisations, this work needs an extra push to take it to its full potential. 

HAIR | The Tribal Love-Rock Musical

Photos: Daniel Boud

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