Gimme a head of 'Hair'
http://www.oregonlive.com/music/index.ssf/2010/12/gimme_a_head_of_hair.html
December 24, 2010,
By David Stabler
We were high school freshmen in 1967, on the cusp of hippiedom,
protests and hair down to there.
I hadn't heard about "Hair" until my friend Kate saw it off-Broadway.
Her godparents took her to see it at Joseph Papp's Public Theater,
not knowing too much about it. Still, they were conscientious
godparents and did their homework first. Before considering a show,
they researched it, read reviews, talked to people. When they heard
Papp was involved, they figured it would be OK for a 15-year-old.
"I remember walking into this darkly lit theater which had an
industrial feel," Kate recalls. "No plush seats. We sat on risers in
almost a bleacherlike setup. We were in the top row or very near, so
we could see very well."
"Hair" was nothing like the Gilbert & Sullivan they had taken her to.
The music was loud. The cast looked like hippies. They talked about
sex, drugs and draft cards.
"There was LOTS of profanity, many sexual innuendoes and scenes with
explicit drug use," Kate says. "This did not shock me, but rather
seemed a sign of the society in which I was trying to find my way. I
remember that Gerome Ragni, one of the writers of the play, was also
one of the stars. My teenager girl's eye thought he was cool --
long-haired and scruffy."
Kate's godparents were in a state. During the first half, they
whispered back and forth. Kate didn't know what they were saying
until intermission, when they offered her the option to leave.
"Merrill was openly dismayed about the content and what my parents
might think about their little girl seeing this kind of stuff."
But Kate persuaded them to stay.
On the way out, she bought the LP, which she has to this day. "I did
what most teenagers do -- played it over and over and over again
until I knew all the songs by heart and then I kept playing it over
and over and over again singing along, dreaming that I was a member
of the cast."
Over the next 40 years, she and her godmother had many laughs over
it. "I don't think she ever got over taking me to that scandalous play."
Back home, Kate made me listen to the album. I loved its trippiness,
the rebelliousness, the invitation to protest.
"Hair" roared back to life last year with a new, Tony-winning
Broadway production that got the critics raving. Now, it's touring
and comes to Portland's Keller Auditorium for eight shows beginning Tuesday.
"They're tearing down the house ..." wrote Ben Brantley in The New
York Times. "And any theatergoer with a pulse will find it hard to
resist their invitation to join the demolition crew."
"Hair, The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical," originally ran for
1,750 performances and became the last original Broadway musical to
introduce more than a couple of Top 40 hits. A 1977 revival didn't do
so well, running for just 43 performances. This new production won a
2009 Tony for best musical revival.
I've never seen "Hair," but like a lot of people, I feel as if I know it.
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