New York Times Review of Hair the Musical
Theater Review | 'Hair'
A Frizzy, Fizzy Welcome to the Untamed '60s
- Hair
- NYT Critic's Pick
- Broadway, Musical
- Closing Date:
- Al Hirschfeld Theater, 302 W. 45th St.
- 877-250-2929
You'll be happy to hear that the kids are all correct. Quite a bit more than all right. Having moved indoors to Broadway from the Delacorte Theater in Central Park — where last summer they lighted up the nighttime skies, howled at the moon and had ticket seekers lining up at dawn — the young cast members of Diane Paulus'southward thrilling revival of "Hair" evidence no signs of becoming domesticated.
On the opposite, they're trigger-happy down the house in the production that opened on Tuesday night at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. And any theatergoer with a pulse will notice it hard to resist their invitation to join the sabotage crew. This emotionally rich revival of "The American Tribal Love-Stone Musical" from 1967 delivers what Broadway otherwise hasn't felt this season: the intense, unadulterated joy and ache of that bi-polar state called youth.
Yes, I know there was a musical called "13," almost beingness exactly that historic period, that opened last fall, and that a lyrical revival of "West Side Story" is at present playing to packed houses only a few blocks away. Only what distinguishes "Pilus" from other recent shows nearly existence young is the illusion it sustains of rawness and immediacy, an un-self-conscious sense of the most cocky-conscious affiliate in a person's life.
Observe I did say "illusion." Ms. Paulus and her creative squad have worked hard at their seamless spontaneity. Karole Armitage's happy hippie choreography, with its group gropes and mass writhing, looks every bit if it's being invented on the spot. But in that location's intelligent form within the seeming formlessness. And the whole product has been shaped in ways that find symmetry — and complexity — in a show that people tend to call back as a feel-good free-for-all.
"Pilus" has a history of defying expectations. Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt MacDermot's portrait of living depression and staying high in the Eastward Village was, by all accounts, a mess upward to the twenty-four hours it opened for previews at the Public Theater in 1967, with a last-minute switch of directors and several wholesale restagings. It was not an obvious candidate for the Broadway transfer information technology made the following year (with a new manager, Tom O'Horgan, and a streamlined book). Simply of course it ran and ran, for 1,750 performances, and became the last original Broadway musical to introduce more than a couple of Top xl hits.
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Its latest resurrection, even so, may be the most surprising of all. "The evidence is the first Broadway musical in some time to have the authentic voice of today rather than the day before yesterday," wrote Clive Barnes in The New York Times when "Hair" opened in 1968. "Accurate voices of today" tend to abound cracked and quaint with age. A 1977 revival, which ran for 43 performances, suggested that "Hair" was strictly a show for its time, not for the ages.
That in that location's zippo of the museum — or, worse, of the vintage jukebox — virtually Ms. Paulus'southward production isn't considering she'southward reinterpreted or even reframed information technology. She does what Bartlett Sher did for "South Pacific" concluding year, finding depths of grapheme and feeling in what most people dismissed as dried corn. It'south non so much what Ms. Paulus brings to "Pilus"; it's what she brings out of it, vital elements that were always waiting to be rediscovered.
Most important, she clearly knew early on that "Hair" isn't just a celebration of the counterculture it depicts. The young folks here who slumber, trip and protest together may spout the philosophy of "peace, love, liberty, happiness." But, hey, they're all mostly in the waning days of their adolescence, a fourth dimension when moods swing wide and adulthood looms as a suffocating shadow.
The kids of "Pilus" are cuddly, sweet, madcap and ecstatic. They're also angry, hostile, confused and scared as hell — and not just of the Vietnam War, which threatens to devour the male members of their tribe. They're frightened of how the hereafter is going to modify them and of not knowing what comes adjacent. Interim out the lives of the adults they disdain (a charade at which Andrew Kober, Theo Stockman and Megan Lawrence are particularly expert) becomes a cathartic ritual.
Ms. Paulus vividly establishes the show's essential dichotomy in the starting time number, when she brings two performers to middle stage. On the one paw, there's Dionne (Sasha Allen), who leads the anthemic "Historic period of Aquarius" with soaring spirits and unimpeachable authority; on the other, standing to Dionne's right, there'southward Crissy (Allison Case), with a scrunched-up face up and contorted posture that read like a plea for assistance, shelter and attention.
They all want attention, of grade. Who doesn't at that age? At to the lowest degree except when you're longing to be invisible, similar Claude (Gavin Creel), a swain who'south almost to exist drafted, who leads the show's nigh stirring songs of affidavit ("I Got Life") and helplessness ("Where Practice I Go").
Though a less flashy and testify-offy presence than his best friend, Berger (Will Swenson), Claude is the divided soul of "Hair." At the Delacorte, Jonathan Groff, with his outsider'southward wistfulness, seemed such a natural in the office that I was sure that the Broadway "Hair" would suffer from his absenteeism. But the pure-voiced Mr. Creel, belatedly of "Mary Poppins," scruffs up existent nice. That he seems more a part of the gang than Mr. Groff did somehow makes this Claude come across every bit more of a bellwether of the group, the one who's about in bear upon with the ambivalence they're all feeling.
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Mr. Creel does not boss the bear witness; nor does the terrific Mr. Swenson, who finds an edge of cruelty and desperation in the grandstanding Berger; nor does Caissie Levy (an splendid new addition to the cast) every bit the earnest politico Sheila, the woman both men sort of honey.
Every single ensemble member emerges as an private, each with specific issues and knotty histories that no drug or slogan tin resolve. (Even their nudity, and how they flaunt it, in the starting time-human activity finale, further defines them.)
After the show I couldn't finish thinking about what would happen to Bryce Ryness'south sexually inchoate Woof; Ms. Case's hopeful, fretful Crissy; Darius Nichols'due south defiant, suspicious Hud; Kacie Sheik's pregnant, cheerily adrift Jeanie; or Ms. Allen's taunting, sensually assured Dionne. I could go along through the entire bandage listing.
Mr. MacDermot's music, which always had more pop than acid, holds upwards beautifully, given infectious life by the onstage band and the flavorfully blended voices of the cast. Scott Pask'southward exposed-wall set is the perfect playground for a globe in which imagination (aided by chemical substances) provides the décor.
But of course no stage can incorporate the hormone-stoked exuberance of those who inhabit information technology, whether they're yipping, unzipping or tripping, both merrily and scarily. Know that y'all may discover yourself in intimate contact with diverse dancing, cajoling tribe members. They may give y'all daisies or leaflets. They may even ask you to embrace them. Non that y'all oasis't already.
HAIR
The American Tribal Dear-Rock Musical
Book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado; music past Galt MacDermot; directed by Diane Paulus; choreography by Karole Armitage; sets by Scott Pask; costumes past Michael McDonald; lighting by Kevin Adams; sound by Peak Sound Partners; orchestrations by Mr. MacDermot; music director, Nadia DiGiallonardo; music coordinator, Seymour Carmine Press; wig design by Gerard Kelly; acquaintance producers, Jenny Gersten, Arielle Tepper Madover, Rebecca Gold/Debbie Bisno, Christopher Hart, Apples and Oranges, Tony and Ruthe Ponturo and Joseph Traina. Presented past the Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, artistic managing director; and Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Gary Goddard Entertainment, Kathleen G. Johnson, Nederlander Productions, Fran Kirmser Productions/Jed Bernstein, Marc Frankel, Broadway Across America, Barbara Manocherian/Wencarlar Productions, J 1000 Productions/Terry Schnuck, Andy Sandberg, Jam Theatricals, Weinstein Company/Norton Herrick, Jujamcyn Theaters; Joey Parnes, executive producer; past special organization with Elizabeth Ireland McCann. At the Al Hirschfeld Theater, 302 West 45th Street, Clinton; (212) 239-6200. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.
WITH: Sasha Allen (Dionne), Allison Case (Crissy), Gavin Creel (Claude), Andrew Kober (Dad/Margaret Mead), Megan Lawrence (Female parent/Buddahdalirama), Caissie Levy (Sheila), Darius Nichols (Hud), Bryce Ryness (Woof), Saycon Sengbloh (Abraham Lincoln), Kacie Sheik (Jeanie), Theo Stockman (Hubert) and Will Swenson (Berger).
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/theater/reviews/01hair.html
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