See Performance of Best Songs from Revival Cast of Broadway's Super Hit of "Hair"

"Let the Sunshine In"
April 1, 2009
| 'HAIR'
By BEN BRANTLEY
Youll be happy to hear that the kids are all right. 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 night skies, howled at the moon and had ticket seekers lining up at dawn — the young cast members of Diane Pauluss thrilling revival of Hair show no signs of becoming domesticated.

On the contrary, theyre tearing down the house in the production that opened on Tuesday night at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. And any theatergoer with a pulse will find it hard to resist their invitation to join the demolition crew. This emotionally rich revival of The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical from 1967 delivers what Broadway otherwise hasnt felt this season: the intense, unadulterated joy and anguish of that bi-polar state called youth.

Yes, I know there was a musical called 13, about being exactly that age, that opened last fall, and that a lyrical revival of West Side Story is now playing to packed houses only a few blocks away. But what distinguishes Hair from other recent shows about being young is the illusion it sustains of rawness and immediacy, an un-self-conscious sense of the most self-conscious chapter in a persons life.

Notice I did say illusion. Ms. Paulus and her creative team have worked hard at their seamless spontaneity. Karole Armitages happy hippie choreography, with its group gropes and mass writhing, looks as if its being invented on the spot. But theres intelligent form within the seeming formlessness. And the whole production has been shaped in ways that find symmetry — and complexity — in a show that people tend to remember as a feel-good free-for-all.

Hair has a history of defying expectations. Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt MacDermots portrait of living low and staying high in the East Village was, by all accounts, a mess up to the day 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 it made the following year (with a new director, Tom OHorgan, and a streamlined book). But 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 40 hits.

Its latest resurrection, however, may be the most surprising of all. The show 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. Authentic voices of today tend to grow 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 theres nothing of the museum — or, worse, of the vintage jukebox — about Ms. Pauluss production isnt because shes reinterpreted or even reframed it. She does what Bartlett Sher did for South Pacific last year, finding depths of character and feeling in what most people dismissed as dried corn. Its not so much what Ms. Paulus brings to Hair; its what she brings out of it, vital elements that were always waiting to be rediscovered.

Most important, she clearly knew early that Hair isnt just a celebration of the counterculture it depicts. The young folks here who sleep, trip and protest together may spout the philosophy of peace, love, freedom, happiness. But, hey, theyre all mostly in the waning days of their adolescence, a time when moods swing wide and adulthood looms as a suffocating shadow.

The kids of Hair are cuddly, sweet, madcap and ecstatic. Theyre 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. Theyre frightened of how the future is going to change them and of not knowing what comes next. Acting 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 shows essential dichotomy in the first number, when she brings two performers to center stage. On the one hand, theres Dionne (Sasha Allen), who leads the anthemic Age of Aquarius with soaring spirits and unimpeachable authority; on the other, standing to Dionnes right, theres Crissy (Allison Case), with a scrunched-up face and contorted posture that read like a plea for help, shelter and attention.

They all want attention, of course. Who doesnt at that age? At least except when youre longing to be invisible, like Claude (Gavin Creel), a young man whos about to be drafted, who leads the shows most stirring songs of affirmation (I Got Life) and helplessness (Where Do I Go).

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[badhorsiee]

man i LOVE those hippies!

[SilvermistFairy1]

I just saw this on Broadway! AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME!!!! <3

[lazygardens]

@NaomiDarwin Because they were cheap clothing.

[suctionplease]

Unbeleivable clip. Love it

[dirty06maggot]

wish i was a hippie in the flower power days

[caravaggio31]

Ben Brantley:"Youll be happy to hear that the kids are all right. Quite a bit more than all right. "

Me: A lot more than just 'all right', sir.

As said by David: "How about that?"

[clownrus]

@NaomiDarwin It's a form of protest, not of compliance and agreement.

[NaomiDarwin]

Don't get me wrong; I think this is amazing. But If they're all about peace and stuff, why are some wearing military jackets?

[gracekarry]

GOOSE-BUMPS!!

[grandpawjoey]

BESTTT Hair cast EVER!!!!

[abitfridlenderer]

@shauna76 Thanxxx :-)