Mature 'Hair' no longer shocking, but still moving
Diane Paulus was a toddler under the influence of her opera-fan mom and
siblings who loved rock 'n' roll when "Hair" first entered her life.
"I have an older brother and sister who I looked up to, and they played
the Beatles and the 'Hair' album, and I loved the music. I used to sing
'Frank Mills' [from 'Hair'] all the time, and I didn't know it was
written like a letter to the editor. I was listening to that music when
I was 2 or 3," said the director of the Tony-winning revival.
"Hair"
Where: PNC Broadway Across America -- Pittsburgh at Heinz Hall,
Downtown.
When: Tuesday through Sunday. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday,
2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $20-$69. pgharts.org or 412-456-6666.
"I was born out of my time ... I'm really a hippie at heart."
She was born in 1966, at around the same time writers Gerome Ragni and
James Rado and composer Galt MacDermot were nurturing the tribal
love-rock musical known as "Hair" into existence. The pop-rock show that
celebrated counter-culture and anti-war activism, with drug references,
nudity and draft-card burning, reached Broadway in 1968. It flowed
organically through a slew of songs with titles such as "Sodomy" and
"Hashish" and "White Boys" and was a jolt of street reality on the Great
White Way.
Flash forward to the summer of 2008, when Ms. Paulus was asked to put
together an anniversary concert of "Hair" in Central Park. It turned out
peace and love were still relevant themes to baby boomers and their
kids, who courtesy of their parents' album collections and oldies radio
stations had grown up on the music.
At various times in 1969, covers of songs from the show were No. 1 (the
Fifth Dimension's "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In") or near the top of
the Billboard Hot 100 charts. With constant radio play, "Hair" had never
gone out of style.
"The music defies musical theater rules. The songs are short ,and there
are so many of them, and they are all so different. They keep coming at
you and the style can change on the fly. There's so much energy from
that," Ms. Paulus said by phone last week, from her New York apartment.
She's working on an opera and a musical about Red Sox fans, but she
keeps tabs on the touring tribe headed to Heinz Hall Tuesday through
Sunday.
The new "Hair" is not the same as the old "Hair," mostly in that it's
impossible for it to shock as it did in its initial run.
In his 1968 review, New York Times critic Clive Barnes wrote that "the
show is the first Broadway musical in some time to have the authentic
voice of today rather than the day before yesterday." That transfer from
New York's Public Theater ran for 1,750 shows.
Mr. Barnes was compelled to add to his rave the ways in which "Hair"
might freak out an audience, including the frequent use of "love and the
other four-letter words," the full-frontal nude scene, the frank
description of a homosexual crush on Mick Jagger ... "In fact," he
wrote, "it has been made into the frankest show in town."
"Back in its day, the prime experience was shock," Ms. Paulus said. "I
talked to Jim [Rado] and Galt [MacDermot], and they talk about what it
was like to take this slice of youth culture and present it to the
bourgeois audiences. Now, when you present something like this in New
York and London, it's more about being moved by it. They didn't remember
it being so emotional, and the audience now has a great ability to
connect with the show."
References to a specific war-torn era don't change the immediacy of the
message. Children of parents who were of age at that time might learn a
lesson about a generation marked by the drafting of young men for an
unpopular war.
The loose story follows a "tribe" -- Ms. Paulus never uses the word
"cast," always "tribe" -- of Village hippies who live, love, do drugs
and howl at the establishment. Among them is Claude, who's about to be
drafted; the charismatic dropout Berger; and the object of their
affections, the activist Sheila.
The youthful yearning for freedom (Claude's stirring "I Got Life") and
the trap of obligations and expectations ("Easy to Be Hard"; "Where Do I
Go?") permeates the show from beginning to end.
"It's not just a history lesson, it's a family lesson," Ms. Paulus said.
"Families come and find out about a father who was a protestor or a
mother who was an activist, someone who fought but never talked about it
before or someone who was turned on politically. All this stuff comes
up. One cast member found out about a family member who was in Germany
and he was in charge of counting the body bags. It's not just a learning
experience, it's a personal experience."
The experience can be close-up and personal, especially when the actors
invade the audience and later, invite audience members to join them
onstage.
Ms. Paulus said it's one of the exciting moments of the tour, to see
patrons' reactions to those moments. In Los Angeles, she said, "it was
the wildest the audience has ever been."
She chuckled at the thought of "Hair" at the Kennedy Center, with its
chandeliers and red velvet seats filled with Capitol Hill residents.
"In Washington, I heard Berger goes into the audience to sit on
someone's lap and it turns out to be a congressman ... you never know
who it's going to be. It's so democratic in that way that you never know
who's going to get a little extra love. Well, if you're in an aisle
seat, you kind of know it could be you."
So, Pittsburgh, come prepared and bring your inner flower child, if not
your tie-dyed shirts, peace signs and granny glasses.
"When you're going to see 'Hair,' it's not like going to a revival," Ms.
Paulus said. "You know you're not going to see 'The Music Man' -- it's
not just nostalgia. It's an experience that you can have again and
again, and it seems new each time."
Correction/Clarification: (Published February 15, 2011) The musical
"Hair" will be at Heinz Hall today through Sunday. An incorrect venue
was given in a Sunday story
Sharon Eberson:
[email protected]
or 412-263-1960.
First published on February 13, 2011 at 12:00 am
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