'60s exuberance on Broadway
A joyous revival of "Hair" features songs that still resound four decades later.
NEW YORK -
Hair
, the legendary 1960s American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, has jumped from a summer Central Park engagement to Broadway with all its exuberance intact - and more.
If you want to know why this joyous revival, which opened Tuesday at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, is so successful, you need not look any further than the show's first-act finale. No, not its brief display of nudity, but what is happening around it.
In this moment of Dionysian frenzy, creators Gerome Ragni, James Rado, and Galt MacDermot have neatly encapsulated the musical's themes. As the hippie tribe chants of beads, flowers, freedom, and happiness, Claude, one of the leads, poignantly sings: "Why do I live, why do I die, tell me where do I go, tell me why."
Director Diane Paulus has done an extraordinary job in illuminating these two conflicting ideas - the clash of spontaneity and the search for identity - ideas that pulse through much of the evening. Paulus and choreographer Karole Armitage are superb guiding spirits, galvanizing an energetic, appealing cast that has gotten even better since the Public Theater's production last year.
The characters may be on the brink of chaos, with a social, political, racial, and sexual revolution swirling around them, but Paulus never lets the celebration get incoherent. If anything, she has refined the production's clarity - not easy when the book by Ragni and Rado is cheerfully anarchic and practically nonexistent, and the music spins off in a cornucopia of styles.
It's the songs that have allowed Hair to remain popular in middle age - "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In," "Easy to Be Hard," "Frank Mills," "Good Morning Starshine." They serve as atmospheric reminders of what Hair is about, a perfect blending of theatrical and pop.
There have been cast changes since the park, and two really strengthen the show. Gavin Creel has a powerhouse voice and brings a sweet-tempered poignancy to the anguished Claude, with his conventional upbringing in Queens, total fascination with all things British ("Manchester, England"), and an uneasy sense of duty that eventually gets him drafted and into the Vietnam War.
The other notable addition is Caissie Levy, who offers a throaty, bitter "Easy to Be Hard," a tough-minded cry against negativity, personal and public.
Alums from the 2008 Central Park production remain just as vivid as before, particularly a charismatic Will Swenson as the hedonistic Berger, who outrageously interacts with the audience - as do other select members of the cast. Anyone who does not wish to get involved would be advised not to sit in aisle seats or the front row.
Hair was never shy at poking fun at parental figures, whether they were traditional mothers and dads, or anthropologist Margaret Mead, essayed here by a hilarious Andrew Kober. And Megan Lawrence has a fine comic turn as Claude's disapproving mother.
When the Broadway transfer of Hair from Central Park was first announced, there was some concern the absence of an outdoor setting would diminish the musical's effectiveness, dampen its communal spirit. It turns out, there was no need to worry.
Hair looks and feels just fine in the Moorish palace that is the Hirschfeld. Scott Pask's design - featuring the back brick wall of the theater - may be minimal, but it allows the show's terrific band to sit right up on stage.
Theatergoers entering the Hirschfeld are met by a shimmering image of Earth. Right away, a sense of community reigns, a connection that extends even after the show's haunting finale - when cast and audience begin dancing together on stage.
At age fortysomething, Hair is the liveliest show in town.